women's equal rights essay

138 Women’s Rights Research Questions and Essay Topics

🏆 best topics related to women’s rights, ⭐ simple & easy essay topics on women’s issues, 📌 most interesting research topics on women’s issues, 👍 good women’s rights research paper topics, ❓ research questions about women’s rights.

Women’s rights essays are an excellent way to learn about the situation of the female gender throughout the world and demonstrate your knowledge.

You can cover historical women’s rights essay topics, such as the evolution of girl child education in various countries and regions or the different waves of the feminism movement.

Alternatively, you can study more current topics, such as the status of women in Islam or the debate about whether women’s rights apply to transgender women.

In either case, there is a multitude of ideas that you can express and discuss in your paper to make it engaging and thought-provoking. However, you should not neglect the basic aspects of writing an essay, especially its structure and presentation.

The thesis statement is critical to your essay’s structure, as it has to be at the center of each point you make. It should state the overall message or question of your paper comprehensively but concisely at the same time.

Afterwards, every point you make should directly or indirectly support the claim or answer the question, and you should make the relationship explicit for better clarity.

It is good practice to make the thesis a single sentence that does not rely on context, being fully self-sufficient, but avoids being excessively long.

As such, writing a good thesis is a challenging task that requires care and practice. Do not be afraid to spend additional time writing the statement and refining it.

It is beneficial to have a framework of how you will arrange topics and formulate your points so that they flow into one another and support the central thesis before you begin writing.

The practice will help you arrange transitional words and make the essay more coherent and connected as opposed to being an assortment of loosely associated statements.

To that end, you should write an outline, which deserves a separate discussion. However, the basics are simple: write down all of the ideas you want to discuss, discard the worst or fold them into other, broader topics until you have a handful left, and organize those in a logical progression.

Here are some additional tips for your structuring process:

• Frame the ideas in your outline using self-explanatory and concise women’s rights essay titles. You can then use them to separate different points in your essay with titles that correspond to outline elements. The outline itself will effectively become a table of contents, saving you time if one is necessary.
• Try to keep the discussion of each topic self-contained, without much reference to other matters you discussed in the essay. If there is a significant relationship, you should devote a separate section to it.
• Do not forget to include an introduction and a conclusion in your paper. The introduction familiarizes the reader with the topic and ends with your thesis statement, setting the tone and direction of the essay. The conclusion sums up what you have written and adds some concluding remarks to finish. The introduction should not contain facts and examples beyond what is common knowledge in the field. The conclusion may not introduce new information beyond what has been stated in the essay.

You can find excellent women’s rights essay examples, useful samples, and more helpful tips on writing your essay at IvyPanda, so visit whenever you are having trouble or would like advice!

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• The Texas Abortion Law: A Signal of War on Women’s Rights and Bodies The purpose of this paper is to examine the structure and implications of the Texas Abortion Law in order to demonstrate its flaws.
• Women’s Rights and Reform Impulses The reform impulses altered women’s place in society, making them equal to men in the ability to speak publicly, pursue their liberty, and attain their goals.
• The Evolution of Women’s Rights Through American History From the property-owning women of the late 18th century to the proponents of the women’s liberation in the 1960s, women always succeeded in using the influential political theories of their time to eventually make feminist […]
• Injustices Women Faced in Quest for Equal Rights The source Alice Paul depicts the numerous contributions that she and her fellow suffragists made to the new rights of women.
• Sojourner Truth – A Women’s Rights Activist and Abolitionist Sojourner Truth believed in truth, justice, and equality for all people, which made her escape slavery and advocate for women’s rights.
• Catharine Beecher and Women’s Rights Catharine Beecher’s “An Appeal to American Women” is a discussion kind of piece that considers the power of women in office and how the issue should be approached.
• The Aftermath of the Progression of Women’s Rights Period At the end of the 1800s and the beginning of 1900s, women’s organizations and women struggled for social reforms, to gain the right to vote, and for diverse political and economic equality.
• Lucy Parsons as a Women’s Rights Advocate and Her Beliefs She was a believer in anarchism and thought that it was the means to liberty and freedom. She wanted the constitution to be amended to say that men and women are equal in all aspects.
• Women in Islam: Some Rights, No Equality Notwithstanding the principles of equality of men and women in Islamic tradition, women’s low status should be attributed not to the ideals set in the Quran but to the cultural norms of the patriarchal society.
• Primary Source on Women’s Voting Rights The combination of statements that degrade the image of suffragettes and suffrage and quotes of leaders’ opinions is a way for the editor to influence the audience.
• Syrian Conflict and Women Rights: Way to Equality or Another Discrimination The main reason for a low percentage of women in the workforce is Syrian social norms, which stereotypically reflect the role of women in homes serving their husbands and in the private sector.
• Movement for Women’s Rights in Great Britain and the United States This essay analytically explores some of the conditions which helped bring about movement for women’s right in Great Britain and United States before the close of the last century. In addition, the most significant demand […]
• Women in Colonial America: Fight for Rights Wives that happily accepted their role and conformed to Puritan societal standards were openly referred to and addressed as ‘goodwife.’ However, the authoritative figure in the family and throughout all facets of Puritan society was […]
• Women’s Involvement and Their Rights in Nationalist Ireland The beginning of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century saw the struggle of the Irish women for the struggle to attaining freedom.
• Women’s Fight for Their Rights Maybe, but lots of researchers are coming to various conclusions: women are not selecting to stay out of the workforce due to a change in approaches, the state.
• Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights In other instants, women in the struggle for civil rights can also file a case in a court of law demanding the lawmakers to enact some policies of which they feel when passed will protect […]
• Refugee Women and Their Human Rights According to the researches have been made by UNHCR, 1998, found that 80% of the refugees immigrating to the United States and other countries of second asylum are women or children.
• Women’s Rights Movement in the 19th Century In this paper, the peculiarities of women’s suffrage, its political and social background, and further reactions will be discussed to clarify the worth and impact of the chosen event.
• Advocating for Women’s Employment Rights in the UAE and Saudi Arabia The position of women in the societies of the UAE and Saudi Arabia is a cause for endless controversy. Public relations between women and men are limited in the given countries, and women are required […]
• Women Rights: New Data and Movements For example, whereas the women’s health rights movement is a global affair, the fact that events related to the movement are mainly held in the US means that other countries do not feel the impact […]
• Women’s Rights in the United States History The leading cause of poverty in developing countries is the lack of skills and education to enable people to get employment.
• Women’s Rights in Palestine and Neighboring Countries In a review of relevant literature, women’s rights in Palestine can be compared to women’s rights in three neighboring countries Jordan, Egypt, and Israel from the perspective of violence and discrimination, and specific differences, including […]
• Planned Parenthood and Women’s Rights It took decades for the government to acknowledge the necessity of the services offered in these clinics and even longer for the public to accept a woman’s right to reproductive health care, the establishment of […]
• Understanding Women’s Right in Islamic World The role of women in the Islamic society during and soon after the death of Prophet Mohammed was similar to that of men.
• Saudi Arabian Women’s Right to Drive: Pros and Cons The objective of this paper is to present the arguments from both sides of the discussion on the issue of whether women should be able to drive legally in Saudi Arabia.
• Arab Spring’s Impact on Women’s Rights and Security The aim of the research is to define the effects that the Arab Spring has had on the perception of women in the Arab society.
• Women’s Rights Since Pre-History to 1600 A.D In this regard, most women from the medieval times could determine their social and political destiny, but the responsibility to others mainly rested on the men.
• Women’s Fight for Equal Human Rights According to the readings assigned, the term feminist could be used to refer to people who fought for the rights of women.
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• Women’s Roles and Rights in the 18-19th Century America We can only do the simplest work; we cannot have a good job because that is the men’s domain, and they have the necessary training to do it.
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• Hip-Hop Music and the Role of Women in It: Fight for Women’s Rights in Society While looking at the various roles of women in hip hop and rap, it is also important to note that the way women are presented has various effects on society.
• Gender Studies: Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia This paper will review the a issue of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia from the perspective of four different groups including the modern Saudi women, traditional Saudi women, Government officials, and international women’s rights organizations.
• Foot Binding in China in Terms of Women’s Rights The practice of foot binding in China can be traced back to the Sung Dynasty that prevailed between 960-1280 AD, supposedly as an imitation of an imperial concubine who was required to perform a dance […]
• Temperance, Women’s Rights, Education, Antislavery and Prison Reform: New Objectives, New Concerns Among the most memorable reforms of that time, the innovations in the system of treating the convicts and the prisoners must be the reform that reflected the very essence of the XIX-century social ideas.
• The Opportunity to Succeed as Women Entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia Compared With UK In addition, it is through the small businesses that new products and services are being developed to meet the growing needs of the population in the entire Kingdom.
• Women’s Rights – Contribution of E. Cady Stanton and S.B. Anthony The first significant and most important move was made by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, on the other hand, was born in a Quaker family and her father was also quite a successful […]
• Oppression of Women’s Rights Affects the Economy of the Middle East For instance in Iceland, the high level of quality of life and health is one of the factors that lead to a GDP per capita of $54,291 On the contrary, there are situations where women […]
• Reform-Women’s Rights and Slavery The colonizers felt that the movement was threatening their business and status in the society and began to ridicule and attack the families of the abolitionists.
• Women’s Role in Contemporary Korea The effort of women to work in professional and high positions in different sectors, the government decided to boost their effort and maintain their morale.
• Non Governmental Organization of Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights Development and Peace In most cases the rights of women which are mainly suppressed include the right to own property, the right to work or hold a public office, the right of receiving education, the right to vote […]
• The Development of Women’s Rights However, she cannot agree to such distribution of the roles, and she calls upon all people to look again at the situation, connected to women’s rights, and provide all women with a chance to participate […]
• Jane Cunningham Croly: Fighting for Women Rights The problem of women inequality with men had been considered in the society and Jane Cunningham Croly was one of those who wanted to contribute to the movement, and her journalistic activity was that measure.
• Women’s Suffrage Discussion The entrenchment of equal rights of women and men and more noticeably the right of every American woman to vote came into being after the enactment of the nineteenth amendment.
• Disclosing the Aspects of Female Authorship as Presented in Woolf’s Professions for Women and Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Right of Woman In their works called A Vindication of the Right of Woman and Professions of Women respectively, they express their vigorous desire to liberate women from the professional taboos to enter female authorship imposed by the […]
• Power of Women’s Rights How the Anti-Slavery Movement Challenge Established Notions of Manhood and Womanhood Kathryn Kish Sklar’s general idea in the book is to enlighten people on the role of women in the society during the 19th century, […]
• Women’s Rights in the Muslim World Ahmed first focuses on the gender pattern in the Middle East prior to the emergence of the Islam in order to gain ground to describe the Islamic doctrine on women that were practiced in the […]
• Afghan Women and Violation of Their Rights It is for this reason that the Taliban have been the party mostly blamed for the mistreatment of women in the country. The U.S.has the necessary resources to ensure that this is achieved therefore guaranteeing […]
• Did Flappers Have a Positive Effect on Women’s Rights in America in the 1920s?
• Abigail Adams’ Inspiring Rebellion for Women’s Rights
• The Power of the Internet and Women’s Rights in Guatemala
• Pencils and Bullets Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
• Women’s Rights in Supreme Court Decisions of the 1960’s and 1970’s
• Women’s Rights: A Path into the Society to Achieve Social Liberation
• The Taliban: Deprivers of Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
• Henrik Ibsen’s Description of Women’s Rights as Depicted in His Play, A Doll’s House
• Perceptions on The Islamic Practice of Veiling: Relevance to the Quest for Women’s Rights
• The Effects of Christianity on Women’s Rights in China
• Women’s Rights in the 1920’s and Examples in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
• Pornography and Feminist Fight for Women’s Rights
• The Progression of Women’s Rights from the Early 20th Century
• Islamic Head Scarf: Women’s Rights and Cultural Sensibilities
• The Women’s Rights Movement in England: 18th Century and Beyond
• Comparing Cultures: the Development of Women’s Rights in China and Saudi Arabia
• Mary Wollstonecraft and the Early Women’s Rights Movement
• The Progression of Women’s Rights in the Middle East
• Elizabeth Stanton’s Impact on Women’s Rights Movement
• Women’s Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean
• Women’s Rights and Their Importance to the Development of True Democracy
• Women’s Rights Within A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• Every Woman Has Her Day: The Women’s Rights Movement in 19th Century
• Evolution of Women’s Rights Since 19th Century
• Integrating Equality – Globalization, Women’s Rights, Son Preference and Human Trafficking
• Analysis of the View of Opinions of Authors Advocating for Women’s Rights
• Abolition of Slavery is Conducive to Women’s Rights Movement
• Women’s Rights Violations in Afghanistan
• Feminism and Women’s Rights in Post Colonial Africa and France
• Social Justice in America: Women’s Rights
• Horace Walpole and Samuel Johnson, Champions of Women’s Rights
• Muslims Women’s Rights to Practice Their Religion
• Women’s Rights and Hills Like White Elephants
• Rhetorical Analysis of Hillary Clinton’s Speech, Women’s Rights Are Human Rights
• Euripides Support of Women’s Rights
• Women’s Rights in Afghanistan 1996 to the Present
• Women’s Rights & Their Impact on the Development of Iran
• Women’s Rights Between 1750 and 1914
• Exploring The Women’s Rights Movement With Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O´Conner
• Progressive Era: The Era of Immigration, Race, and Women’s Rights
• Women’s Rights in the United States in the 1700s
• Which Countries Violate Women’s Rights?
• What Was the Aim of the Women’s Movement?
• How Did the Anti-Slavery Movement Contribute to the Women’s Rights Movement?
• Who Were the 4 Main Leaders of the Women’s Rights Movement?
• How Does Gender Inequality Affect Women’s Rights?
• Who Fought for Women’s Right to Work?
• What Was the Biggest Women’s Rights Movement?
• What Are the Colors for Women’s Rights?
• Why Women’s Rights Lost Ground at the End of World War Two?
• What Is the Role of Lesbians in the Women’s Movement?
• How Far Women’s Rights Have Come?
• What Laws Help Women’s Rights?
• How Were the Abolition and Women’s Rights Movements Similar?
• What Are the Most Important Events in Women’s Rights History?
• Who Is Responsible for Women’s Rights?
• What Is the History of Women’s Rights?
• What Were 3 Major Events in the Women’s Rights Movement?
• How Margaret Fuller and Fanny Fern Used Writing as a Weapon for Women’s Rights?
• How Did Race Impact African American Women’s Experiences During the Women’s Suffrage Movement?
• What Was the Cause of the First Woman’s Rights Convention?
• Why Is Education Important for Women’s Rights?
• How Are Women’s Rights Linked to Economic Development?
• When Did the Women’s Rights Movement Start and End?
• Why Did the Women’s Rights Movement Emerge in the USA During the 1950S and 1960S?
• What Are Women’s Cultural Rights?
• Who Was the First Black Women’s Rights Activist?
• When Was the First Female Vote?
• What Was the Movement for Women’s Rights in the 1800S?
• Who Was the Black Woman Who Fought for Women’s Rights?
• Who Was the Biggest Women’s Rights Activist?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Essay On Women Rights

500 words essay on women rights.

Women rights are basic human rights claimed for women and girls all over the world. It was enshrined by the United Nations around 70 years ago for every human on the earth. It includes many things which range from equal pay to the right to education. The essay on women rights will take us through this in detail for a better understanding.

Importance of Women Rights

Women rights are very important for everyone all over the world. It does not just benefit her but every member of society. When women get equal rights, the world can progress together with everyone playing an essential role.

If there weren’t any women rights, women wouldn’t have been allowed to do something as basic as a vote. Further, it is a game-changer for those women who suffer from gender discrimination .

Women rights are important as it gives women the opportunity to get an education and earn in life. It makes them independent which is essential for every woman on earth. Thus, we must all make sure women rights are implemented everywhere.

How to Fight for Women Rights

All of us can participate in the fight for women rights. Even though the world has evolved and women have more freedom than before, we still have a long way to go. In other words, the fight is far from over.

First of all, it is essential to raise our voices. We must make some noise about the issues that women face on a daily basis. Spark up conversations through your social media or make people aware if they are misinformed.

Don’t be a mute spectator to violence against women, take a stand. Further, a volunteer with women rights organisations to learn more about it. Moreover, it also allows you to contribute to change through it.

Similarly, indulge in research and event planning to make events a success. One can also start fundraisers to bring like-minded people together for a common cause. It is also important to attend marches and protests to show actual support.

History has been proof of the revolution which women’s marches have brought about. Thus, public demonstrations are essential for demanding action for change and impacting the world on a large level.

Further, if you can, make sure to donate to women’s movements and organisations. Many women of the world are deprived of basic funds, try donating to organizations that help in uplifting women and changing their future.

You can also shop smartly by making sure your money is going for a great cause. In other words, invest in companies which support women’s right or which give equal pay to them. It can make a big difference to women all over the world.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Women Rights

To sum it up, only when women and girls get full access to their rights will they be able to enjoy a life of freedom . It includes everything from equal pay to land ownerships rights and more. Further, a country can only transform when its women get an equal say in everything and are treated equally.

FAQ of Essay on Women Rights

Question 1: Why are having equal rights important?

Answer 1: It is essential to have equal rights as it guarantees people the means necessary for satisfying their basic needs, such as food, housing, and education. This allows them to take full advantage of all opportunities. Lastly, when we guarantee life, liberty, equality, and security, it protects people against abuse by those who are more powerful.

Question 2: What is the purpose of women’s rights?

Answer 2: Women’s rights are the essential human rights that the United Nations enshrined for every human being on the earth nearly 70 years ago. These rights include a lot of rights including the rights to live free from violence, slavery, and discrimination. In addition to the right to education, own property; vote and to earn a fair and equal wage.

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A global story

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series . In this essay series, Brookings scholars, public officials, and other subject-area experts examine the current state of gender equality 100 years after the 19th Amendment was adopted to the U.S. Constitution and propose recommendations to cull the prevalence of gender-based discrimination in the United States and around the world.

The year 2020 will stand out in the history books. It will always be remembered as the year the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the globe and brought death, illness, isolation, and economic hardship. It will also be noted as the year when the death of George Floyd and the words “I can’t breathe” ignited in the United States and many other parts of the world a period of reckoning with racism, inequality, and the unresolved burdens of history.

The history books will also record that 2020 marked 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment in America, intended to guarantee a vote for all women, not denied or abridged on the basis of sex.

This is an important milestone and the continuing movement for gender equality owes much to the history of suffrage and the brave women (and men) who fought for a fairer world. Yet just celebrating what was achieved is not enough when we have so much more to do. Instead, this anniversary should be a galvanizing moment when we better inform ourselves about the past and emerge more determined to achieve a future of gender equality.

Australia’s role in the suffrage movement

In looking back, one thing that should strike us is how international the movement for suffrage was though the era was so much less globalized than our own.

For example, how many Americans know that 25 years before the passing of the 19th Amendment in America, my home of South Australia was one of the first polities in the world to give men and women the same rights to participate in their democracies? South Australia led Australia and became a global leader in legislating universal suffrage and candidate eligibility over 125 years ago.

This extraordinary achievement was not an easy one. There were three unsuccessful attempts to gain equal voting rights for women in South Australia, in the face of relentless opposition. But South Australia’s suffragists—including the Women’s Suffrage League and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, as well as remarkable women like Catherine Helen Spence, Mary Lee, and Elizabeth Webb Nicholls—did not get dispirited but instead continued to campaign, persuade, and cajole. They gathered a petition of 11,600 signatures, stuck it together page by page so that it measured around 400 feet in length, and presented it to Parliament.

The Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Bill was finally introduced on July 4, 1894, leading to heated debate both within the houses of Parliament, and outside in society and the media. Demonstrating that some things in Parliament never change, campaigner Mary Lee observed as the bill proceeded to committee stage “that those who had the least to say took the longest time to say it.” 1

The Bill finally passed on December 18, 1894, by 31 votes to 14 in front of a large crowd of women.

In 1897, Catherine Helen Spence became the first woman to stand as a political candidate in South Australia.

South Australia’s victory led the way for the rest of the colonies, in the process of coming together to create a federated Australia, to fight for voting rights for women across the entire nation. Women’s suffrage was in effect made a precondition to federation in 1901, with South Australia insisting on retaining the progress that had already been made. 2 South Australian Muriel Matters, and Vida Goldstein—a woman from the Australian state of Victoria—are just two of the many who fought to ensure that when Australia became a nation, the right of women to vote and stand for Parliament was included.

Australia’s remarkable progressiveness was either envied, or feared, by the rest of the world. Sociologists and journalists traveled to Australia to see if the worst fears of the critics of suffrage would be realised.

In 1902, Vida Goldstein was invited to meet President Theodore Roosevelt—the first Australian to ever meet a U.S. president in the White House. With more political rights than any American woman, Goldstein was a fascinating visitor. In fact, President Roosevelt told Goldstein: “I’ve got my eye on you down in Australia.” 3

Goldstein embarked on many other journeys around the world in the name of suffrage, and ran five times for Parliament, emphasising “the necessity of women putting women into Parliament to secure the reforms they required.” 4

Muriel Matters went on to join the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. In 1908 she became the first woman to speak in the British House of Commons in London—not by invitation, but by chaining herself to the grille that obscured women’s views of proceedings in the Houses of Parliament. After effectively cutting her off the grille, she was dragged out of the gallery by force, still shouting and advocating for votes for women. The U.K. finally adopted women’s suffrage in 1928.

These Australian women, and the many more who tirelessly fought for women’s rights, are still extraordinary by today’s standards, but were all the more remarkable for leading the rest of the world.

A shared history of exclusion

Of course, no history of women’s suffrage is complete without acknowledging those who were excluded. These early movements for gender equality were overwhelmingly the remit of privileged white women. Racially discriminatory exclusivity during the early days of suffrage is a legacy Australia shares with the United States.

South Australian Aboriginal women were given the right to vote under the colonial laws of 1894, but they were often not informed of this right or supported to enroll—and sometimes were actively discouraged from participating.

They were later further discriminated against by direct legal bar by the 1902 Commonwealth Franchise Act, whereby Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were excluded from voting in federal elections—a right not given until 1962.

Any celebration of women’s suffrage must acknowledge such past injustices front and center. Australia is not alone in the world in grappling with a history of discrimination and exclusion.

The best historical celebrations do not present a triumphalist version of the past or convey a sense that the fight for equality is finished. By reflecting on our full history, these celebrations allow us to come together, find new energy, and be inspired to take the cause forward in a more inclusive way.

The way forward

In the century or more since winning women’s franchise around the world, we have made great strides toward gender equality for women in parliamentary politics. Targets and quotas are working. In Australia, we already have evidence that affirmative action targets change the diversity of governments. Since the Australian Labor Party (ALP) passed its first affirmative action resolution in 1994, the party has seen the number of women in its national parliamentary team skyrocket from around 14% to 50% in recent years.

Instead of trying to “fix” women—whether by training or otherwise—the ALP worked on fixing the structures that prevent women getting preselected, elected, and having fair opportunities to be leaders.

There is also clear evidence of the benefits of having more women in leadership roles. A recent report from Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL) at King’s College London, shows that where women are able to exercise political leadership, it benefits not just women and girls, but the whole of society.

But even though we know how to get more women into parliament and the positive difference they make, progress toward equality is far too slow. The World Economic Forum tells us that if we keep progressing as we are, the global political empowerment gender gap—measuring the presence of women across Parliament, ministries, and heads of states across the world— will only close in another 95 years . This is simply too long to wait and, unfortunately, not all barriers are diminishing. The level of abuse and threatening language leveled at high-profile women in the public domain and on social media is a more recent but now ubiquitous problem, which is both alarming and unacceptable.

Across the world, we must dismantle the continuing legal and social barriers that prevent women fully participating in economic, political, and community life.

Education continues to be one such barrier in many nations. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women. With COVID-19-related school closures happening in developing countries, there is a real risk that progress on girls’ education is lost. When Ebola hit, the evidence shows that the most marginalized girls never made it back to school and rates of child marriage, teen pregnancy. and child labor soared. The Global Partnership for Education, which I chair, is currently hard at work trying to ensure that this history does not repeat.

Ensuring educational equality is a necessary but not sufficient condition for gender equality. In order to change the landscape to remove the barriers that prevent women coming through for leadership—and having their leadership fairly evaluated rather than through the prism of gender—we need a radical shift in structures and away from stereotypes. Good intentions will not be enough to achieve the profound wave of change required. We need hard-headed empirical research about what works. In my life and writings post-politics and through my work at the GIWL, sharing and generating this evidence is front and center of the work I do now.

GIWL work, undertaken in partnership with IPSOS Mori, demonstrates that the public knows more needs to be done. For example, this global polling shows the community thinks it is harder for women to get ahead. Specifically, they say men are less likely than women to need intelligence and hard work to get ahead in their careers.

Other research demonstrates that the myth of the “ideal worker,” one who works excessive hours, is damaging for women’s careers. We also know from research that even in families where each adult works full time, domestic and caring labor is disproportionately done by women. 5

In order to change the landscape to remove the barriers that prevent women coming through for leadership—and having their leadership fairly evaluated rather than through the prism of gender—we need a radical shift in structures and away from stereotypes.

Other more subtle barriers, like unconscious bias and cultural stereotypes, continue to hold women back. We need to start implementing policies that prevent people from being marginalized and stop interpreting overconfidence or charisma as indicative of leadership potential. The evidence shows that it is possible for organizations to adjust their definitions and methods of identifying merit so they can spot, measure, understand, and support different leadership styles.

Taking the lessons learned from our shared history and the lives of the extraordinary women across the world, we know evidence needs to be combined with activism to truly move forward toward a fairer world. We are in a battle for both hearts and minds.

Why this year matters

We are also at an inflection point. Will 2020 will be remembered as the year that a global recession disproportionately destroyed women’s jobs, while women who form the majority of the workforce in health care and social services were at risk of contracting the coronavirus? Will it be remembered as a time of escalating domestic violence and corporations cutting back on their investments in diversity programs?

Or is there a more positive vision of the future that we can seize through concerted advocacy and action? A future where societies re-evaluate which work truly matters and determine to better reward carers. A time when men and women forced into lockdowns re-negotiated how they approach the division of domestic labor. Will the pandemic be viewed as the crisis that, through forcing new ways of virtual working, ultimately led to more balance between employment and family life, and career advancement based on merit and outcomes, not presentism and the old boys’ network?

This history is not yet written. We still have an opportunity to make it happen. Surely the women who led the way 100 years ago can inspire us to seize this moment and create that better, more gender equal future.

• December 7,1894: Welcome home meeting for Catherine Helen Spence at the Café de Paris. [ Register , Dec, 19, 1894 ]
• Clare Wright, You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World , (Text Publishing, 2018).
• Janette M. Bomford, That Dangerous and Persuasive Woman, (Melbourne University Press, 1993)
• Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences, (Icon Books, 2010)

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series.  Learn more about the series and read published work »

About the Author

Julia gillard, distinguished fellow – global economy and development, center for universal education.

Gillard is a distinguished fellow with the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. She is the Inaugural Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London. Gillard also serves as Chair of the Global Partnership for Education, which is dedicated to expanding access to quality education worldwide and is patron of CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education.

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5 Women’s Rights Essays You Can Read For Free

Women and girls are the most disenfranchised group in the world. Even in places where huge strides have been made, gaps in equality remain. Women’s rights are important within the realm of human rights. Here are five essays exploring the scope of women’s rights, which you can download or read for free online:

“A Vindication on the Rights of Woman” – Mary Wollstonecraft

Mother of Mary Shelley, who wrote the novel Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft is a juggernaut of history in her own right, though for a different reason. Self-educated, Wollstonecraft dedicated her life to women’s education and feminism. Her 1792 essay A Vindication on the Rights of Woman represents one of the earliest writings on women’s equality. In the Western world, many consider its arguments the foundation of the modern women’s rights movement. In the essay, Wollstonecraft writes that men are not  more reasonable or rational than women, and that women must be educated with the same care, so they can contribute to society. If women were left out of the intellectual arena, the progress of society would stop. While most of us believe the idea that women are inherently inferior to men is very outdated, it’s still an accepted viewpoint in many places and in many minds. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication is still relevant.

“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” – Audre Lorde

Poet and activist Audre Lorde defied the boundaries of traditional feminism and cried out against its racist tendencies. While today debates about intersectional feminism (feminism that takes into account race, sexuality, etc) are common, Audre Lorde wrote her essay on women’s rights and racism back in 1984. In “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” Lorde explains how ignoring differences between women – whether its race, class, or sexuality – halts any real change. By pretending the suffering of women is “all the same,” and not defined by differences, white women actually contribute to oppression. Lorde’s essay drew anger from the white feminist community. It’s a debate that feels very current and familiar.

“How to convince sceptics of the value of feminism” – Laura Bates

Laura Bates founded the Everyday Sexism Project website back in 2012. It documents examples of everyday sexism of every degree and has become very influential. In her essay from 2018, Bates takes reader comments into consideration over the essay’s three parts. This unique format allows the essay to encompass multiple views, just not Bates’, and takes into consideration a variety of experiences people have with skeptics of feminism. Why even debate skeptics? Doesn’t that fuel the trolls? In some cases, yes, but skeptics of feminism aren’t trolls, they are numerous, and make up every part of society, including leadership. Learning how to talk to people who don’t agree with you is incredibly important.

“Why Can’t A Smart Woman Love Fashion?” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of the most influential voices in women’s rights writing. Her book, We Should All Be Feminists , is a great exploration of 21st-century feminism. In this essay from Elle, Adichie takes a seemingly “small” topic about fashion and makes a big statement about independence and a woman’s right to wear whatever she wants. There is still a lot of debate about what a feminist should look like, if wearing makeup contributes to oppression, and so on. “Why Can’t A Smart Woman Love Fashion?” is a moving, personal look at these sorts of questions.

“The male cultural elite is staggeringly blind to #MeToo. Now it’s paying for it.” – Moira Donegan

There are countless essays on the Me Too Movement, and most of them are great reads. In this one from The Guardian, Moira Donegan highlights two specific men and the publications that chose to give them a platform after accusations of sexual misconduct. It reveals just how pervasive the problem is in every arena, including among the cultural, intellectual elite, and what detractors of Me Too are saying.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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Comprehensive argumentative essay example on the rights of women, rachel r.n..

• February 20, 2024
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What You'll Learn

Women’s rights have been a significant focal point in the ongoing discourse on social justice and equality. The struggle for women’s rights is deeply rooted in history, marked by milestones and setbacks. While progress has undeniably been made, there remain persistent challenges that necessitate continued advocacy and action. This essay argues that the advancement of women’s rights is not only a matter of justice and equality but also a fundamental imperative for societal progress.(Comprehensive Argumentative essay example on the Rights of Women)

The historical context of women’s rights is marked by a legacy of systemic discrimination, limited opportunities, and societal norms that perpetuated gender inequality. From the suffragette movement to the fight for reproductive rights, women have consistently challenged oppressive structures. The recognition of women’s rights as human rights, as articulated in international conventions, underscores the global commitment to address historical injustices and promote gender equality.(Comprehensive Argumentative essay example on the Rights of Women)

One crucial aspect of women’s rights is economic empowerment . The gender pay gap and limited access to economic resources have persisted despite advancements in the workplace. Empowering women economically not only contributes to their individual well-being but also enhances overall societal prosperity. Research consistently demonstrates that economies thrive when women actively participate in the workforce and have equal opportunities for career advancement.(Comprehensive Argumentative essay example on the Rights of Women)

Education is a powerful catalyst for social change, and ensuring equal access to education for girls and women is integral to advancing women’s rights. When women are educated, they become catalysts for positive change within their communities. Educated women are more likely to make informed decisions about their lives, contribute meaningfully to society, and break the cycle of poverty.

Rights Securing women’s rights includes safeguarding their reproductive health and rights. Access to comprehensive healthcare, including reproductive services, is essential for women to have control over their bodies and make autonomous choices about family planning. Policies that prioritize women’s health contribute to a healthier and more equitable society.(Comprehensive Argumentative essay example on the Rights of Women)

Violence Against Women Addressing and preventing violence against women is a critical component of the women’s rights agenda. Gender-based violence not only inflicts harm on individual women but also perpetuates a culture of fear and inequality. Legal frameworks, awareness campaigns, and support services are essential tools in combating violence against women and ensuring their safety and well-being.(Comprehensive Argumentative essay example on the Rights of Women)

In conclusion, the advancement of women’s rights is not only a moral imperative but also a crucial factor in fostering societal progress. A comprehensive approach that addresses historical injustices, economic disparities, educational opportunities, reproductive rights, and violence against women is essential. As we strive for a more equitable future, it is imperative that individuals, communities, and governments actively support and promote women’s rights, recognizing that the empowerment of women is synonymous with the advancement of society as a whole.(Comprehensive Argumentative essay example on the Rights of Women)

80 Topic Ideas for Your Argumentative Essay

• Universal Basic Income
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• Immigration Policies
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• Online Education vs. Traditional Education
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Brownlee, K. (2020). Being sure of each other: an essay on social rights and freedoms. Oxford University Press, USA. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kTjpDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Argumentative+essay+example+on+the+Rights+of+Women&ots=oysLrPE6ux&sig=ANTnu_5AH4_3PMfGG0XdMzxBpLA

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Gender equality, the ‘unfinished human rights struggle of this century’: UN chief

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Achieving equal rights for women is “the unfinished human rights struggle of this century”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in remarks to the Generation Equality Forum which began online from Mexico City on Monday. 

Although acknowledging significant victories achieved over recent decades, the UN chief stressed progress has been slow.  Meanwhile, regressive laws have resurfaced, violence targeting women and girls has increased, and the “seismic shocks” of the COVID-19 pandemic have decimated many gains.  

The movement for gender equality is under attack.Regressive laws are back, violence against women is increasing, and the pandemic has erased hard-fought gains.It's time for bold commitments & investments that will help achieve equal rights for all.pic.twitter.com/ACfITwfAVz António Guterres, UN Secretary-General antonioguterres March 29, 2021

“It is time to regroup and re-energize our quest to create a more equal, more just, more sustainable world in which all people can realize their human rights without discrimination and without fear”, said Mr. Guterres, speaking in Spanish. 

Generating change 

The Generation Equality Forum brings together governments, international organizations, the private sector and young people, in efforts to advance global commitments on gender equality.  Elvira Pablo of the Generation Equality Youth Task Force put it bluntly:  "We youth are tired of hearing words and commitments without immediate action. This is the time to act ."

The forum was convened by the UN’s gender entity, UN Women , and is co-hosted by the Governments of Mexico and France.  The initial three-day meeting is now underway in the Mexican capital, and the culmination will take place in Paris in June. 

“By the time we get to Paris in June, we want to see bold commitments and investments on the table, and a strong multi-stakeholder movement for gender equality”, the Secretary-General said. “The realization of the equal rights of half our population is the unfinished human rights struggle of this century. “ 

For Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the UN Women Executive Director, the forum represents a chance to effect real change in the world. 

“We want to look to the future beyond the crisis, rather than doubling down on the mistakes of the past”, she said.  “We want an opportunity to build a new, feminist economic model that works for women, and a world that is safe for women. Such economic models prioritize both care for people, and care for our planet.” 

Make way for youth 

The UN Secretary-General outlined five areas for action as countries recover from the pandemic, starting with protecting women’s equal rights and repealing discriminatory laws. 

He called for special measures and quotas to ensure equal representation, and highlighted the need for equal pay as well as job protection and social protection policies. 

Mr. Guterres urged governments to immediately enact emergency response plans to address the rise in violence against women and girls that has emerged alongside the pandemic, while his final point underscored hope for the future. 

 “Give space to the intergenerational transition that is underway and to the young people who are advocating for a more just and equal world”, he said. 

• GENDER EQUALITY

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Feminist perspectives on human rights.

• Laura Parisi Laura Parisi Department of Women's Studies, University of Victoria
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.48
• Published in print: 01 March 2010
• Published online: 30 November 2017

Feminism has provided some new perspectives to the discourse on human rights over the years. Contemporary feminist scholarship has sought to critique the liberalism on which the conception of formal “equality” in the international human rights laws has been derived on a number of grounds. Two of the most pertinent critiques for this discussion are: the androcentric construction of human rights; and the perpetuation of the false dichotomy between the public and private spheres. This exploration of the relationship between liberalism and women’s human rights constitutes a significant shift in which many feminists had realized that the emphasis on “sameness” with men was limited in its utility. This shift rejected the “sameness” principle of the liberal feminists and brought gender-specific abuses into the mainstream of human rights theory and practice. By gender mainstreaming international institutions and future human rights treaties, specific women’s rights could be defined as human rights more generally. Feminists have since extended their critique of androcentrism and the public–private dichotomy to the study of gender inequalities and economic globalization, which is an important systemic component of structural indivisibility. In particular, the broader women’s human rights movement has come to realize that civil-political liberties and socioeconomic rights are inextricable, though there is disagreement over the exact nature of this relationship.

• human rights
• women’s rights
• international human rights laws
• androcentrism
• public–private dichotomy
• economic globalization
• civil-political liberties
• democratization

Introduction

Feminist critiques of human rights seek to dismantle several hierarchies present in the human rights regime. By critiquing the basic assumptions of human rights as they were formulated in 1945–8 , feminists have revealed that these definitions are inadequate, that men and women have different relationships with the state, and that rights are not fixed and immutable. Rather, they are historically, socially, culturally, and economically contingent. This essay explores feminist contributions to the human rights discourse in several ways. The first half of the essay chronicles and analyzes the evolution of the “women’s rights are human rights” discourse as well as the development of the notion of the indivisibility of rights. The second half of the essay looks the feminist debates with regards to women’s human rights in three issue areas or contexts: globalization, democratization, and culture. The essay concludes with a discussion of the current challenges with regards to data collection in measuring the achievement of women’s human rights.

Although there are multiple feminisms, the terms feminist and feminism are used in a broad sense in this essay to connote a shared goal of seeking to re-articulate human rights in an effort to achieve gender equality, even though theoretical entry points into the discourse and resulting strategies may vary widely among feminists (Tong 2008 ). Similarly, the concept of human rights has been contested in many ways, but it is beyond the scope of this essay to delve into these debates. Rather, the focus will be on what feminists have understood human rights to be in theory and in practice.

Women’s Rights Are Human Rights: Evolution of the Discourse

During the “first wave” of feminism (loosely defined as late nineteenth century to early twentieth century ), theorists and activists paid particular attention to the gendered construction of citizenship that was employed to deny civil and political liberties to women and other minority groups. Writings by theorists and activists such as Mary Wollstonecraft , John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor , Lucretia Mott , Elizabeth Cady Stanton , and Susan B. Anthony dominated early feminism. However, many of the debates that took place during the first wave also spilled over to the immediate post–World War II era, particularly during the process of creating the United Nations (UN) as well as the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The central liberal feminist tenet that carried over to the post–World War II period is that men and women are the same in rational ability and capacity for individual autonomy and self-determination and therefore should be afforded full citizenship and its attendant rights, protections, and opportunities.

Yet, there were others who argued that women should be conceptualized as a group marked by sexual difference and that special protection was needed to “level the playing field”; only in this way could women advance individual self-determination and self-governance (Rupp 1997 :105; Lake 2001 :255). For many first wave liberal feminists, the primary way to achieve sexual equality (or parity) was through legislative means, i.e., suffrage, education, labor rights, etc. The liberal feminist ideal of “sameness” laid the groundwork for the future of women’s international human rights in the institutional arrangements in the United Nations as well as the drafting of the UDHR in 1948 . However, as we shall see, the theoretical tension between the competing feminist agendas of nondiscrimination and special protections had long-lasting effects in the women’s human rights movement.

The UDHR does not specifically address women’s rights but it does briefly address the idea of sexual equality in Article 2: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” Those who insisted on the inclusion of “sex” in Article 2 hoped that it would address the inequality of women by putting them on an “equal footing” with men (Johnson 1998 :61). There were, of course, others who felt the inclusion of the word “sex” was unnecessary given that the UDHR explicitly states the rights delineated in the document apply to “everyone.”

Although these may seem like minor occurrences and debates, they laid the theoretical groundwork for policy making within the UN Committee on the Status of Women (CSW) and the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCHR) for many decades. In the years that followed the creation of CSW and the ratification of the International Bill of Rights, liberal feminists paid particular attention to securing civil and political liberties for women. It is important to note that the emphasis on civil and political liberties was pervasive throughout the UN system, particularly by Western powers and those countries allied with the United States during the Cold War. Consequently, given the power of the United States in the international system during the 1950s and 1960s, it is not surprising that several other human rights conventions which specifically addressed the status of women, such as the Convention on the Political Rights of Women ( 1952 ), emphasized civil and political liberties as the way to achieve sexual equality. Like the UDHR, these covenants emphasized “sameness” and did not take into account men’s and women’s qualitatively different experiences in the public sphere nor did they tackle structures that perpetuated gender hierarchies.

Contemporary feminist scholarship has sought to critique the liberalism on which the conception of formal “equality” in the UDHR and other international human rights laws has been derived on a number of grounds. Two of the most pertinent critiques for this discussion are: the androcentric construction of human rights; and the perpetuation of the false dichotomy between the public and private spheres. The public–private split “refers to the (artificial) distinction between home (private or reproductive sphere) to which women are assigned, and the workplace (the public or productive sphere) to which men are assigned” (Peterson and Runyan 1999 :259). These concepts are connected with both the radical feminism and the socialist feminism of the 1970s that was a response to the perceived inadequacies of liberal feminism. The issue of the relationship between gender and the public and private spheres is briefly touched upon in the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which was developed during the UN Decade for Women ( 1975–85 ) in order to have a “single, comprehensive and internationally binding instrument to eliminate discrimination against women” (UNDAW n.d. ). However, it was not until the late 1980s that this relationship was fully theorized in terms of women’s human rights, development, and international law. The end result has been a major theoretical shift in both theory and practice.

Both androcentrism and the public–private split are embedded in patriarchy (another core theoretical concept of radical and socialist feminisms), understood here to mean the degree to which society is “male-dominated, male-identified, and male-centered” (Johnson 1997 :5). Many contemporary feminist analyses of human rights laws, institutions and practice are grounded in critiques of the broader construct of patriarchy. Since rights themselves are socially constructed in that they reflect a “distinctive, historically unusual set of social values and practices,” the context in which human rights were/are developed is an important analytical tool (Donnelly 1999 :81). For example, Charlesworth ( 1995 :103) suggests that

because the law-making institutions of the international legal order have always been, and continue to be, dominated by men, international human rights law has developed to reflect the experiences of men and largely to exclude those of women, rendering suspect the claim of objectivity and universality in human rights law.

The claim of androcentrism in the development of human rights is predicated on two issues that are raised by Charlesworth. The first surrounds the issue of the position of the speaker; it is important to evaluate who is making rights claims and on whose behalf (Rao 1995 ). In the case of human rights discourse, the historical record reflects that mainstream human rights has largely been influenced by masculinist liberal ideology, which reflects what is desirable or ideal, such as individual autonomy, in the social construction of human rights. Hence, the claim of objectivity must be questioned.

The second issue revolves around the liberal ideological foundations of human rights, inalienability and universality. These concepts are largely derived from John Locke ’s Second Treatise on Government ( 1690 ), in which he argues for the natural and inalienable rights of human beings – rights one has simply by virtue of being human. Cast in this light, rights of individual humans appear to be universal and should take precedence above all else (Locke 1980 ). State governance should not be guided by the “greater good” principle because it encroaches upon individual “opportunity to make fundamental choices about what constitutes the good life (for them), who they associate with, and how” (Donnelly 1999 :80). Embedded in this notion of the individual is the idea that individuals are rational enough to exercise these rights. During Locke’s era the “criteria” for rationality was ownership of private property, which excluded women, low-wage workers, and slaves from exercising rights, thereby severely undermining the notion of universality. Furthermore, since the principles of inalienability and universality were theorized in the context of elite male experience, the current traditional construction of human rights excludes the experiences of women and other marginalized groups. The male experience with, and definition of, human rights came to be accepted as the “norm,” and it is this social construction of human rights that feminists have sought to challenge and rearticulate.

The individualism and egalitarianism that are crucial to Locke’s liberalism may at first seem contradictory to patriarchy, which is predicated on gender hierarchies that presume that the subordination of women to men is based on “natural” characteristics. However, as Pateman ( 1989 :33–57) observes, Locke also provides a theoretical basis for the exclusion of women from individualist arguments. Locke makes a distinction between the political power of the public sphere and paternal power in the private sphere of the family. This move is grounded in his view that women’s subordination to their husbands in the private sphere is natural and non-political, and perhaps also “pre-political” (Rao 1996 :445). This “natural” subordination of women, which is condoned and supported by the state, suggests that they cannot at the same time be free and equal individuals. Therefore, Locke’s separation between public and paternal power effectively relegates women to the private sphere (Pateman 1989 :33–57), where they have little ability to claim rights in the public sphere (Romany 1994 ). In this way, the state is able to protect both the public and private interests of men (Peterson and Parisi 1998 :147).

The public–private distinction also rests on fundamentally different conceptions of citizenship for men and women that date back to the time of the ancient Greek polis and continue to be firmly embedded in liberal thought (Grant 1991 :12–13). As a result, “human rights law was gendered male: it protected a male subject, who experienced violations primarily directed at men, in largely male spaces” (Friedman 2006 :480–1). Since the public sphere is associated with masculinity, “the duties and activities of citizenship have strongly depended on manliness” (Voet 1998 :7). As citizens, men are/were accorded certain rights that women, relegated to the private sphere, are/were not. The association of the feminine with the private sphere has historically identified and still continues to identify women as non-citizens, and, hence, as less than fully autonomous beings. For example, laws governing the nationality of children in countries such as Kenya, which deem that the citizenship of children is determined by the father’s citizenship (and not the mother’s), reinforce the concept of citizen as male. The association of the feminine with the private sphere identifies women as non-citizens, and hence, as less than fully autonomous beings unable to make claims to rights (Romany 1994 ).

The emphasis on the public sphere as the proper realm of human rights depoliticizes women’s experiences in the private and reinforces androcentric constructions of human rights. The artificial distinction between the public and the private spheres also allows for the appearance of the state as non-gendered, and masks how formal legal equality in the public sphere contributes to states’ complicity in facilitating gender hierarchies in the private sphere. In general, states are discouraged by international law from intervening in the private sphere given the primacy placed on the sanctity of the family and the right to privacy (Sullivan 1995 :127). The result is that states are held accountable only for the human rights abuses they perpetrate and not for the conduct of individuals in the private sphere, where most gender-based violence occurs. Hence, gender-based violence in the home, until recently, was not considered to be a human rights abuse (Bunch 1990 ).

For example, marital rape has historically often not been considered a criminal act by the state, and this idea is still prevalent in many countries, such as the Bahamas and Zambia, where marital rape has yet to be criminalized. Although the International Bill of Rights guarantees the right of everyone to be free from torture and enslavement by the state, and explicitly prohibits rape of and assault against women in times of conflict, it does not guarantee women freedom from domestic abuse, which for many women is a form of torture and/or enslavement (Copelon 1994 ). The subordination of women in the private sphere is justified and naturalized as the patriarchal state, in accordance with the liberal maxim of individual freedom and the protection of private property, protects the private, individual interests of men. Under international human rights laws, states have often not been held accountable for their inaction (or inadequate action) that has enabled gender-based violence in the private sphere.

Due to feminist activism and scholarship in this area, gender-specific violence is now considered a legitimate human rights issue (Bunch 1990 ; Copelon 1994 ; Keck and Sikkink 1998 ; Joachim 2003 ; Merry 2006 ). As a result, there is now the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women ( 1993 ), a UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, and the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has further codified violence against women as a punishable offense. Although these are all very positive developments, many feminists, such as Ratna Kapur ( 2005 ), worry about the implications of the framing of women as primarily victims of violence. Kapur ( 2005 :99) argues that while “the victim subject […] provides a shared location from which women from different cultural and social contexts can speak” and also “provides women with a subject that repudiates the atomized, decontextualized and ahistorical subject of liberal rights discourse, while at the same time furnishing a unitary subject that enables women to makes claims based on a commonality of experience,” the end result is a conceptualization of “women” that falls prey to gender essentialism, producing another type of “universal” subject that “resembles the uncomplicated subject of the liberal discourse, which cannot account for multi-layered existences and experiences” (Kapur 2005 :99). Kapur, and others such as Mohanty ( 1991 ) and Narayan ( 1997 ), also argue that the focus on the victim subject results in cultural essentialism, which will be explored in more detail at the end of this essay.

Another implication of the feminist critique of the public–private dichotomy is the presumed heterosexuality of the family unit in the private sphere (Rao 1996 ; Peterson and Parisi 1998 ). The UDHR’s Article 16 protects the right of adult men and women to freely and consensually marry, and the right to found a family, “without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion” (UDHR 1948 ). Article 16.3 locates the family as the “natural and fundamental group unit of society and [it] is entitled to protection by society and the state.” Although the UDHR does not specify that marriage must be between a man and a woman or that families must be heterosexual units, Article 16 specifies nondiscrimination only on the basis of race, nationality, and religion and excludes sexuality. The exclusion of sexuality as the basis for nondiscrimination in marriage reveals a hidden (or presumed) heterosexist bias, and also raises the question of what types of families should be protected. However, the Western, liberal construction of the heterosexual family has prevailed as the dominant interpretation of Article 16 because it maps neatly onto the gendered dichotomy of the public–private split, and the “family is viewed normatively as an arena for something other than rights” since it is “pre-political,” “sentimental,” and “noncontractual” (Rao 1996 :245). As a result, heterosexism has become naturalized and normalized in many mainstream international human rights documents, and this interpretation precludes protection of any other sexual identities by rendering them outside the “fundamental group unit of society” (Peterson and Parisi 1998 ). This positioning outside the protection of the human rights framework, as is well known, has had deleterious effects on sexual minorities in not only asserting their right to sexualities, but also in making claims to other individual and group rights (LaViolette and Whitworth 1994 ; Dorf and Perez 1995 ; Peterson and Parisi 1998 ).

At the Beijing conference, the issues of gender, sexual orientation, and the definition of family were hotly contested. The use of gender came under fire by conservative groups and states who rejected a social constructivist approach to the term in order to exclude sexual orientation from being read into the definition (Chappell 2007 :515). Instead, “gender” in the Platform For Action (PFA), and other international documents since then, is now understood to mean “the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society” (ibid.). While there are numerous problems with this definition of gender, for the purposes of this discussion, it is important to highlight that the intense wrangling had two significant and related impacts on the PFA. First, all explicit references to sexual orientation in the document were dropped. Second, the use of the term family, rather than families, stayed intact. Thus, the naturalized, patriarchal, heterosexual family delineated in the UDHR is preserved. It was feared that the inclusion of specific rights for sexual minorities would result in not passing the PFA at all. Although the PFA claims the right of women to freely determine their sexuality and recognizes the family in “various forms,” for many this wording is too ambiguous and hollow given that it also acknowledges that cultural, religious, national, and regional particularities must be considered in the implementation of these rights (Steans and Ahmadi 2005 :241). By invisibilizing sexualities, the PFA precluded the delineation of more explicit rights for sexual minorities with regards to property rights, children, and so forth.

Yet, at the same time, there has been considerable discussion about whether or not advancing of the agenda of sexual minorities in a rights based framework is useful and desirable (LaViolette and Whitworth 1994 ; Morgan 2001 ; Mertus 2007 ). Mertus ( 2007 ), in her study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) advocacy in the US, demonstrates the reluctance of many groups to adopt a rights based approach since it may require them to accept set identity categories. LaViolette and Whitworth ( 1994 ) identify a similar tension more globally. Finally, Morgan ( 2001 ) also asks whether or not it is at all desirable to fight for inclusion in a decidedly heteronormative system in the first place. This response parallels the concerns of radical feminists working to achieve women’s rights in a system that is inherently patriarchal and not worthy of being retained in their point of view (Brems 1997 ). Instead, it might be more productive to disrupt patriarchal and heteronormative systems rather than focusing on inclusion in them (Morgan 2001 ).

Ultimately, however, the exploration of the relationship between liberalism and women’s human rights constituted a significant shift in which many feminists (especially cultural feminists) realized that the emphasis on “sameness” with men was limited in its utility. The shift entailed focusing on gender relations as a category of analysis, a valuing of difference, and delineating gender-specific experiences (Brems 1997 ). This tactic rejected the “sameness” principle of the liberal feminists and brought gender-specific abuses into the mainstream of human rights theory and practice. By gender mainstreaming international institutions and future human rights treaties, specific women’s rights could be defined as human rights more generally (Bunch 1990 ).

The Structural Indivisibility of Rights

By the 1970s the limitations of the emphasis on civil and political liberties for women became increasingly clear as the UN struggled with the issues of poverty, malnutrition, and population as it began its preparations for the World Food Conference ( 1974 ) and the World Population Conference ( 1974 ). The failure of the liberal feminist assumption that the achievement of political and civil liberties would translate into economic opportunity for women prompted a re-articulation of the relationship between civil and political liberties and socioeconomic rights for women. The argument shifted to the idea that women who lack food, shelter, education, property, health services, etc. cannot fully enjoy and exercise their civil and political liberties (Parisi 2002 ). In addition, the publication of Ester Boserup’s ( 1970 ) Woman’s Role in Economic Development , in which she documented the negative consequences of modernization programs on women’s lives, influenced liberal feminists to expand their focus on rights to include economic and labor issues. This approach eventually became known as “Women in Development” (WID) and it marked the beginning of the UN Decade for Women ( 1975–85 ).

Yet, the WID approach was roundly criticized by socialist-Marxist feminists and third world feminists for its adherence to the liberal framework of “sameness” discussed earlier by promoting an “add women and stir” model of development aimed at achieving gender equality. This approach fails to examine the structures that caused and perpetuated this inequality in the first place. In response to this critique and to the lack of a more cohesive vision for women’s rights and well-being, the fledgling “global” women’s movement began to develop an explicit vision of the indivisibility of human rights. This vision was ultimately reflected in the theme of the UN Decade for Women: “Equality – Development – Peace” (FLS 1985 : paragraphs 11–13). The three objectives formed a more sophisticated basis for women’s human rights and were, and still are, viewed as “internally interrelated and mutually reinforcing, so that the advancement of one contributes to the advancement of the others” (Pietilä and Vickers 1996 :49). The first attempt at encapsulating these ideals resulted in the World Plan of Action (WPA) that in turn provided an impetus and basis for the drafting of CEDAW, which passed in the UN in 1979 , and entered into force in 1981 . (For a comprehensive history of the events leading up to the UN Decade for Women and of the drafting of CEDAW, see Fraser 1999 .)

CEDAW extends women’s rights provisions in the International Bill of Human Rights in that it created an “international bill of women’s rights” that defines and addresses all forms of discrimination against women and is guided by the principle of what Otto ( 2001 :54) calls “structural indivisibility.” Structural indivisibility stresses “interconnections between the political, economic, environmental, and security priorities of the international order and violations of human rights” (ibid.). This vision is somewhat different than Bunch’s ( 1990 ) emphasis on the necessary interconnectedness between political, civil, socioeconomic and cultural rights in that it takes into account the systemic factors which link and influence the achievement of these rights.

The majority of the 30 articles of CEDAW are concerned with social, economic, and cultural rights embedded in the liberal feminist WID and non-discrimination framework that relies heavily on the principle of equality before the law; only four articles deal explicitly with the political and civil liberties of women. However, the preamble and some of the articles of CEDAW address additional concerns important to third world feminists, Marxist feminists, and radical feminists. For example, it reiterates the call for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) to tackle global economic inequality and demands the right to cultural self-determination and the end of imperialism, colonization, and racism. CEDAW also affirms the right of women to space their children – a victory for radical feminists involved in reproductive rights movements. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, it acknowledges the contributions to society that women make in the home, thus breaking down the distinction between the public and private spheres (the personal is political) and highlighting how traditional gender roles can be a source of women’s oppression.

The mission behind CEDAW is to recast women as subjects rather than objects of development, recognizing them as fully autonomous beings entitled to human rights widely enjoyed by men, yet at the same time recognizing that there are indeed differences between men and women, such as the ability to bear children, that have historically served as justification for discrimination against women. CEDAW is thus cast in a seemingly paradoxical framework that uses both the “measure of man” as a benchmark for equal rights and correctives to move the discourse from being gender-neutral to being gender-specific (Kaufman and Lindquist 1995 ; Friedman 2006 ; Arat 2008 ). As a result, feminists challenged the patriarchal and androcentric way in which mainstream human rights treaties had been conceptualized, which largely ignored the experiences of women and other marginalized groups, but also reaffirmed some of the androcentric conceptualizations of human rights. However, in acknowledging the contributions to society that women make in the home, CEDAW breaks down the artificial distinction between the public and private spheres (the personal is political) and highlights how traditional gender roles can be a source of women’s oppression. This important claim in CEDAW has been crucial in the CEDAW committee’s ability to identify and broaden the scope of violations of women’s human rights and to redress them through their general recommendations (Arat 2008 )

Gender and Human Rights in the Context of Globalization

One important systemic component of structural indivisibility is economic globalization. Feminists have extended their critique of androcentrism and the public–private dichotomy so pervasive in the human rights discourse to the study of gender inequalities and economic globalization (Youngs 2000 ). Although there are many issues that fall under this area of study, this section will focus exclusively on the topic of the relationship between gender inequality in socioeconomic rights and economic globalization. The next section deals with democratization and will make the link between socioeconomic and civil and political rights. Feminist human rights scholars have been concerned with how the deepening of capitalism affects the state and the state’s ability to fulfill its human rights obligations. However, the crucial point of departure in this literature is its explicit focus on how this transformation is gendered and has gendered consequences (Lothian 1996 ; Sen 1997 ; Sassen 1998 ; Peratis et al. 1999 ; Bayes et al. 2001 ; Rittich 2001 ; Elson 2002 ). More explicitly, economic globalization not only produces gender inequalities, but also maintains and relies upon these inequalities in a variety of contexts in order to deepen capitalism, as well as to rearticulate the state.

As Rittich ( 2001 :96–7) notes, there are several concerns to address when assessing the relationship between the state and the achievement of women’s human rights. One issue is the recognition that the women’s rights discourse and movement was and still is deeply embedded in and reliant upon the state-centered model of human rights. Even though feminist critiques of both the human rights regime and the state have revealed both their androcentrism and their complicity in preserving the public–private split which is profoundly gendered, the solutions posed by many feminists depend on the state to change its perspective, and consequently its behavior. As such, Chappell ( 2000 :245) suggests that feminists have moved to a middle ground with regards to the state, viewing it neither as “inherently patriarchal and oppressive” nor as “gender neutral,” but rather the emphasis is now on the “interaction between the state and gender,” in which each shapes the other. For example, Weldon’s ( 2002 ) research on cross-national variations of state policy responsiveness with regards to violence against women issues shows that strong, autonomous women’s movements have significant influence on state policy change.

Regardless, the state becomes the primary agent in promoting and implementing effective strategies to eradicate gender inequalities. Yet, implicit in this design is the assumption of an economically prosperous, democratic state or, at the very least, an effectual one that subscribes to a neoliberal economic agenda. Although the international covenants on human rights allow for “progressive realization” of human rights, this concept also hinges on the notion that states will consistently and persistently search for ways to reallocate resources to further the enjoyment of human rights. For feminists, this means taking seriously the ways in which the state contributes to gender inequality through its social policies, and relying on the state to correct itself.

This perspective, of course, is not unproblematic. As Sassen ( 1998 :94) suggests, the state is still viewed as the legitimate representative of the population in the international law arena, diminishing the contributions and limiting the participation of other nonstate actors. Furthermore, access to and influence over state policies is not uniform among women’s rights and human rights groups, and states are also subject to lobbying from other special interest groups, which may or may not be supportive of human rights based initiatives (Rittich 2001 :97). In addition to these problems, as Chappell ( 2000 :246–7) notes, there is a historic disjuncture among women’s rights activists in the first and third worlds, who have quite different views regarding the utility of achieving rights through the state, given the wide variation of states with regards to resources, effectiveness, and openness/repressiveness. However, given that the Beijing PFA ( 1995 ), which now operates as the dominant referent in international women’s rights law, places responsibility with states to realize and protect women’s rights in the face of potential negative consequences of globalization (rather than challenging globalization itself), and the increasingly “economistic turn” in the gender and development literature that conceptualizes “empowerment” as economic empowerment (Marchand 1996 :580), it appears that the “national-management framework” (Bergeron 2001 :993) is the primary one in place in both the first and third worlds, as an interactive site of resource allocation and resistance.

It is important to note, however, the framework utilized by the PFA has been challenged on many fronts, most notably by indigenous women, who, in their response to the PFA, roundly criticized globalization as recolonization and responsible for environmental degradation and continued poverty in indigenous lands and nations (Vinding 1998 ). They are explicit in their rejection of the strategy of trying to mitigate the negative effects of globalization, which is embedded in the interlocking systems of oppression of capitalism, patriarchy, and colonization (Kuokkanen 2008 ). Rather, for many indigenous women, there needs to be not only recognition of the structural violence that globalization perpetuates and sustains, but also a recognition of how the PFA and the contemporary discourses on women’s rights are complicit in maintaining this system.

A second, highly interrelated issue is markets. As Elson ( 2002 :80–1) suggests, the traditional neoliberal orthodoxy that began in the 1970s and prevailed in the 1980s, “presumes that the best way to give substance to human rights is to reduce the role of the state, liberate entrepreneurial energy, achieve economic efficiency, and promote faster economic growth.” The neoliberal emphasis on the retrenchment of the state as the best way to ensure the fulfillment of human rights seems contradictory to the human rights regime’s insistence of proactive state involvement in meeting its human rights obligations. Yet, as Bayes et al. ( 2001 :3) note, both economics and politics are linked through the rhetoric if not the practice of neoliberalism, which defines the current period. They argue that in theory, neoliberal economics assumes a separation between states and markets, in which markets operate with little intervention from the state. Brodie ( 1996 :384) suggests further that this theoretical relationship between states and markets is actually one of the public and private, in which the private is made up of two realms that are presumed to be out of the “natural” purview of the state: the capitalist economy and the patriarchal family.

However, as discussed earlier, the notion of a rigid public–private divide in the human rights regime has largely been deconstructed by feminists, and in using a similar line of reasoning, feminists suggest that the globalizing neoliberal capitalist world economy rests not on a division between the state (public) and the markets (private) but rather that economic globalization, in its current form, requires an interconnection between states and markets to further its goals. That is, economic globalization requires governments to “provide for the free movement of capital, the free movement of goods, unrestricted labor markets, responsible banking systems, stable monetary policies, limited fiscal policies, attractive investment opportunities, and political stability” (Bayes et al. 2001 :3). Through these practices, the “family and other aspects of private life [are subjected to] new forms of state scrutiny, regulation, and assistance” (Brodie 1996 :385). Thus, the “boundaries” of the public–private are renegotiated, rearticulated, and blurred through the interaction of states (especially liberal democratic ones) and markets.

Although state entrenchment with regards to the economy may be a conscious and pro/re-active strategy on the part of governments as a route to economic prosperity that in theory promotes the progressive realization of socioeconomic rights through more resource allocation, the neoliberal ideology effectively shifts the responsibility away from states to markets as the guarantors of rights. Markets have little accountability and regulation in the human rights regime, insofar as multinational corporations, a major force behind globalization, have little oversight in international law and, in many cases, national law. This development poses particular challenges for feminists, who argue that the neoliberal democratic state, coupled with international human rights law, represents the best hope for the redistribution of resources guided by prioritizing the goal of gender equality. This is not to imply that feminists view the neoliberal democratic state as “gender neutral” or unproblematic. Rather, as the earlier discussion of the human rights discourse reveals, many feminists find the liberal democratic state profoundly gendered.

Another major point of feminist theorizing about globalization is that economic globalization not only produces gender inequality but also requires gender inequality to flourish and to sustain itself. Indeed, there appears to be a general consensus that globalization exacerbates gender inequality, and thus the fulfillment of women’s socioeconomic rights in relation to men’s, in important ways. There are numerous other areas in which feminists have examined globalization’s impact on gender inequality and rights, such as household relations (Kromhout 2000 ; Gonzalez 2001 ; Sircar and Kelly 2001 ; Soni-Sinha 2001 ), migrants/migration (Anderson 2000 ; Chang and Ling 2000 ; Kofman 2000 ), sex work/trafficking (Pettman 1996 ; Hanochi 2001 ), informal labor (Prügl 1999 ; Benería 2003 ), resistance (Runyan 1996 ; Karam 2000 ; Lind 2000 ; Rowbotham and Linkogle 2001 ; Naples and Desai 2002 ) and identity (Peterson 1996 ; Kuokkanen 2008 ). However, these topics are beyond the scope of this project and, as such, will not be discussed in depth here.

As noted earlier, in order for states to remain economically competitive, they adopt strategies that increase the power of the private sector at the expense of the public sector. The result is the weakening of “many institutions that in the past have assumed responsibility for human welfare – while passing on to others burdens they cannot be expected to bear” (UNRISD 1995 :128). For many women, this situation is especially problematic because in order for states to uphold their obligations under CEDAW and the Beijing PFA, they must allocate resources for social welfare programs.

There have been two major responses by states facing the choice of economic competitiveness or guaranteeing socioeconomic rights. Industrialized countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have deregulated the labor market and wages and cut social welfare programs in order to stimulate economic growth and employment (UNRISD 1995 :131). Developing countries have often adopted structural adjustment programs that implement severe economic austerity measures with the aim of jump-starting the economy at the expense of “non-profitable” public service programs. Feminist economists have shown that structural adjustment programs (SAP) have a differential impact on men and women in that women tend to absorb most of the shock of SAPs by increasing their domestic labor (through caregiving, altering the household consumption habits, subsistence farming, informal economic activities) and by entering the labor force to provide more income for the family (Elson 1991 ; Bakker 1994 ; Benería 2003 ; Çagatay 2003 ). As a result, there has been an increase in women’s poverty and economic inequality, and this constitutes a violation of women’s socioeconomic rights (Sadasivam 1997 ).

A second, interrelated issue is how economic globalization depends on a gendered sexual division of labor. The international sexual division of labor is predicated on the public–private split in which men’s work is considered to be “human” or real work, and women’s work is determined by their “nature” (Mies 1999 :46). Work is defined as a public masculine activity and women’s work (or non-work) is defined as a private sphere activity. However, women’s work in the private sphere is extremely important to the functioning of the capitalist system, yet despite this important role, women are undervalued in both the public and private spheres because of their identification as housewives, rather than as “workers” (Mies 1999 :116). Indeed, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that “the non-monetized invisible contribution of women is $11 trillion a year” (UNDP 1995 :6). This identification with the home as a site of “non-work” for women is also complicit in the violation of the rights of women who do work in the home for monetary gain, such as piecework. Because it is conducted in the “private sphere,” there is little international labor regulation around home based work, with the exception of the 1996 International Labor Organization Convention on Homework (Prügl 1999 ). However, only five countries have ratified it, which underscores the pervasiveness of the masculinized ideal of real, productive work that takes place only in the public sphere.

The sexual division of labor and its resulting sexism also helps maintain capitalism as system (Wichterich 2000 ; Campillo 2003 ). This has important consequences for women, because even when they do work outside the home they are usually cast in unequal terms. The implication is that capitalism necessarily depends on a certain amount of low-wage and unpaid labor to keep it functioning (Peterson 2003 ), as the “labor input in non-wage work ‘compensates’ the lowness of the wage-income and therefore in fact represents an indirect subsidy to the employers of wage laborers in those households” (Wallerstein 1988 :8). The identification of women with the private sphere helps keep capitalism’s costs low and at the same time provides a justification for this strategy.

The end result is limited economic opportunity for women since their labor is in the form of underpaid or unpaid labor in the capitalist system of profits and capital accumulation. Many labor sectors have become feminized, particularly the garment and electronics industries. Women are the preferred “workers” because they do not have to be paid as much as men. This is due in part to the devaluation of women’s labor (or the seeing of their paid labor as a natural extension of the private sphere) and the assumption that their wages are used for “extras” rather than to support the family (Mies 1999 :116). The state is complicit in perpetuating this sexism because of its need to stay competitive in global markets. Many women have their basic economic rights, such as the right to safe labor conditions and pay equity, denied because states would find it too costly to provide these opportunities to women. If the cost of production of goods increases, products would be less competitive on the international market. States are reluctant to hold multinational corporations accountable for their labor practices because the pressure for revenue is too great and the threat of relocation by multinational corporations (MNC) is real (Sen 1997 ).

The bottom line for many feminists is that economic globalization, operating within a neoliberal frame, both produces and exacerbates some forms of gender inequality. States are responding to globalization by shifting the burden onto women (and other marginalized sectors of society) to create their own social safety net. However, because women’s work is usually undervalued or unpaid given their identification with the private sphere, meeting basic needs requirements of food, shelter, health care, and clothing becomes especially challenging. In light of these gendered inequities, some feminist scholars, such as Elson ( 2006 :3) have suggested applying a gendered and rights based approach to the analysis of government budgets in order to “identify gender inequalities in budget processes, allocations and outcomes; and assess what States are obliged to do to address these inequalities” as a way to keep states accountable and responsive to women in the context of globalization.

Democratization

While the broader women’s human rights movement is in tacit agreement that civil-political liberties and socioeconomic rights are inextricable, there is disagreement over the exact nature of this relationship. Furthermore, if one takes the notion of structural indivisibility seriously, a rather complex picture of the relationship between the liberal democratic state, democratization processes, globalization, socioeconomic rights, and gender emerges. Utilizing Huntington ( 1991 ), some feminist analyses of democracies and democratization reveal that one important factor to consider with regards to gender equality is whether or not the state in question is in a period of democratic transition or of democratic consolidation (Jaquette and Wolchik 1998 ; Bystydzienski and Sekhon 1999 ; Hawkesworth 2001 ; Yoon 2001 ; Goetz and Hassim 2002 ). Many, but not all, of these studies show that women fare better in the transition phase (shifting from a nondemocratic type of government to a democratic one) than in the consolidation phase, which involves the establishment of rules, institutions, and political culture. However, there are also cases, such as in the post-communist states, where women have lost considerable economic and political power during the democratic transition phase (see, for example, Wolchik 1998 ).

Hawkesworth ( 2001 :223–6) suggests that the democratic consolidation phase in conjunction with liberal capitalist development has deleterious effects on gender equality, and thus the achievement of women’s rights, for two main reasons. First, developing countries, through modernization programs, are pressured to adopt a neoliberal capitalist model of development. This connects to the earlier discussion of economic development in the sense that modernization theory presumes that the adoption of capitalism will in turn produce a liberal democratic state, partially because liberal democracies are necessary to guarantee the private property rights that are crucial to global capitalism. A further assumption is that the combination of the deepening of capitalism and the consolidation of a liberal democracy will in fact elevate human rights fulfillment for the citizenry.

However, and this is Hawkesworth’s second point, the dominant model of Western liberal democracy that many countries seek to emulate has a weak record in achieving gender equality. With the exception of the Scandinavian countries, which Hawkesworth argues are more properly thought of as “social” democracies rather than liberal, women in advanced industrialized countries are still vastly underrepresented in the upper echelons of the public sphere. Although the advanced industrialized democracies guarantee equal rights for women and minorities, in reality the consolidation process has worked to produce and institutionalize a patriarchal elite class that undermines the principle of government for the people by the people. As the democratic consolidation process is coupled with the deepening of capitalism, political participation becomes the privilege of those who are economically empowered.

In her analysis, Hawkesworth ( 2001 :224) concludes that “democratization produces gendered redistribution of resources and responsibilities that make women worse off.” Given this scenario, it is not surprising that some feminists have linked the twin processes of globalization and democratization as detrimental to the achievement of human rights for women. Although one consequence of globalization is that more women are in the paid labor force, women have not been able to translate this into political empowerment because these economic “opportunities” are the result of having to make up for states’ inabilities to provide for basic needs. And, as noted earlier, gendered notions around work preclude the idea that more women in the labor force is a sign of increasing gender equality (Elson 2002 ). In short, globalization disempowers women economically, which in turn disempowers them politically by leaving little time, money, or energy to fully exercise civil and political rights.

Why, then, the insistence by the broader women’s human rights regime that the liberal democratic state remains the best hope for the achievement of gender equality in human rights? There are several answers to this conundrum that shed light on the further complexity of globalization, democratization, and women’s human rights achievement. First, no country has completed the process of democratic consolidation, and given that many of the countries do in fact guarantee civil and political rights, there are potential avenues to reshape the consolidation process to demand accountability. For example, feminist scholars have tracked the global diffusion of two notable policies: (1) the adoption of gender quotas in electoral processes, which more than fifty countries have done as a way to increase women’s participation in public life (Bauer 2008 ; Dahlerup 2008 ; Krook 2008 ; Sacchet 2008 ); and (2) the development of women’s policy agencies within the state (also known as “state feminism”) in over 165 countries (True and Mintrom 2001 ; Lovenduski 2005 ). While there are significant disagreements among feminists about the quality of women’s representation in these spheres as well as about the utility of both of these developments for the achievement of gender equality and women’s rights, they are cautiously viewed as positive developments nonetheless.

Second, and closely related to the first point, although globalization has had negative consequences, it also opens up spaces for women’s informal and formal political empowerment (Sassen 1998 ; Moghadam 1999 ; Bayes et al. 2001 ). Sassen ( 1998 :94) suggests that “globalization is creating new operational and formal openings for the participation of non-state actors and subjects,” which in turn provides for the possibility of reshaping ideas about representation, power, and authority. Third, although the role of the state appears to be diminishing or transforming in the wake of globalization, the unevenness of globalization has also ensured that human rights are a part of the permanent global agenda, and thus states are still crucial actors in this regard.

Fourth, and finally, as Rittich ( 2001 :96) observes, “human rights are now often mentioned in the same breath as market reform and development.” Some feminists have recognized this linking of human rights and markets as an opportunity to press for a refined state-management approach coupled with collective global governance to mitigate the negative effects of the global economy. However, others, such as Bergeron ( 2001 ), are skeptical of this approach because of the way feminist appeals to the state for “protection” frame the subjectivities and agency of women. Bergeron ( 2001 :995) suggests that when women are depicted as victims of globalization, an unintended consequence can be that the state will move to adopt “the traditional masculine role of protecting women and families.” This result is ultimately contrary to many feminist goals in achieving rights, and further points out the limitations of “victimization” rhetoric, as mentioned earlier, in accomplishing such goals.

Feminists have utilized the idea of indivisibility to challenge embedded gender hierarchies in the human rights regime to greatly expand the inclusiveness and, therefore, universality of rights (Otto 2001 :54–5). In particular, feminists have shown how the private and public spheres are interconnected, suggesting that economic, social, and political rights are necessarily linked – each one is key to the enjoyment of the other. Feminists have also identified international structures, such as security regimes and the global economy, as key variables to be examined, understood, and accounted for in relation to gender inequality in human rights. The “structural indivisibility” framework easily extends to all contemporary human rights regimes in that it provides an analytic tool for evaluating the impacts of globalization on gender inequality and socioeconomic rights.

The Question of Culture

The topic of cultural practice, traditions, and customary laws has occupied a central place of importance in feminist critiques and understandings of human rights. A central, well-known tension is between universal and cultural relativist positions on human rights. The universal position decrees human rights as inalienable and held by all members of the “human family,” whereas the cultural relativist position argues that “members of one society may not legitimately condemn the practices of societies with different traditions, denying that there can be valid external critiques of culturally-based practices and that no legitimate cross-cultural standards for the evaluating the treatment of rights exist” (Mayer 1995 :176). Many justifications for the denial of women’s human rights are framed in cultural relativist terms, and often positioned as an anti-Western, anti-imperialist response (Rao 1995 ; Brems 1997 ; Narayan 1998 ; Shacher 2001 ; Kapur 2005 ; Winter 2006 ; Bovarnick 2007 ). This paradoxical position frequently results in conflict between women’s individual rights and group cultural rights. Women may agree with the right of their cultural group to practice their culture, while at the same time disagreeing with how these cultural practices affect their personal autonomy and agency. Winter ( 2006 :385) notes that cultural relativist arguments are disproportionately deployed on the question of women’s rights, in that “those articles in UN treaties in favor of religious and cultural rights and the elimination of race discrimination do not appear to be as problematically ‘Western’ as those which defend women’s rights.” The literature on the topic of culture is vast and complex, and due to space constraints, there will be only a cursory and oversimplified overview of it here.

An important contribution of the feminist literature in this area is a deconstruction of the term “culture” itself. Rao ( 1995 :173) argues that culture is “a series of constantly contested and negotiated social practices whose meanings are influenced by the power and status of their interpreters and participants.” By identifying culture as a dynamic, political practice, it allows for a move away from cultural essentialism, or the idea that culture is somehow a homogeneous, static, internally consistent, natural, prediscursive given. Cultural essentialism, as such, is a form of cultural relativism in that it often positions itself as “traditional” and “authentic” and therefore not subject to critical examination. Furthermore, cultural essentialism can also mask “synecdochic substitutions” in which “‘parts’ of a practice come to come to stand in for a whole” and obscure the harmful nature of these “traditional” practices (Narayan 1998 :95). By defining culture as an ongoing process, feminist human rights scholars have revealed the gendered power dynamics embedded in the construction and perpetuation of cultural and religious practices. As Rao ( 1995 :168) notes, by understanding culture in this way, one can ask to what degree members of a cultural group are able to participate in the defining of culture as well as who benefits from a particular version of culture.

There is also considerable emphasis on the tension between universalism and cultural relativism (Brems 1997 ; Okin 1998 ; Bovarnick 2007 ; Freedman 2007 ; Steans 2007 ). Some feminist scholars suggest that the application of universal human rights has had little applicability in non-Western contexts. Bovarnick’s ( 2007 ) study of rape in Mexico and Pakistan reveals important insights into the question of cultural context and particularity when assessing whether or not universal human rights are useful in addressing violence against women. Positioning Mexico and Pakistan as non-Western countries in this study, her analysis reveals that while discourses around violence against women in both of these countries are in fact quite particularized, there are transcultural connections that can be made through the commonalities of “how traditional social mechanisms legitimize and reproduce violence against women” (Bovarnick 2007 :61). Despite their vast cultural differences, the two countries appropriate and regulate women’s bodies and sexuality in a similar fashion, highlighting the importance of addressing the global mechanism of which these different manifestations of violence against women are a part (Bovarnick 2007 ). Bovarnick seems to be suggesting that there are other transcultural universals emerging out of non-Western contexts that need to be taken into account in order to render a potentially different understanding and potential acceptance of universal rights.

Narayan ( 1998 ), however, suggests that for feminists to even use categories such as “Western” and “non-Western” is a culturally essentialist move in itself that can play right into the hands of third world fundamentalists, who often use cultural relativist and anti-imperialist justifications to deny women’s human rights, as well as of “Western cultural supremacists,” who support the idea that the West is morally and politically superior to all “Others” (Narayan 1998 :97). Furthermore, she takes issue with the notion that “equality” and “human rights” are inherently “Western values” to begin with. Narayan (ibid.) argues that “as a result of political struggles by […] various excluded groups in both Western and non-Western contexts […] doctrines of equality and rights have slowly come to be perceived as applicable to them, too.” For Narayan (ibid.), conceptualizations of rights and equality are not just products of Western imperialism but can be considered as products of struggles against internal and external forms of Western imperialism.

Many other feminist scholars are also currently engaged with trying to reconcile universalism with cultural particularism as a way to move past this polarizing dichotomy and to advance the goals of women’s human rights and gender equality. Nussbaum ( 2000 :100) argues for the capabilities approach which focuses on “what people are actually able to do and to be” rather than on what rights or resources individuals have, as one way to traverse this dichotomy. She builds a very complex argument that is oversimplified here due to space constraints, but at the crux of her work is development of the capabilities model, which is informed by the work of Amartya Sen , Marx , and Aristotle and others. Nussbaum argues that her list of basic human functional capabilities (life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; control over one’s environment) are cross-culturally recognizable and desirable as well as necessary to the flourishing of human life ( 2000 :78–80). She suggests that by using capabilities, rather than rights, as the goals to be achieved, we will have the tools for developing a cross-cultural consensus for “determining a decent social minimum in a variety of areas” (Nussbaum 2000 :75). In her view, the capabilities approach is universal but not ethnocentric, for “ideas about activity and ability are everywhere, and there is no culture in which people do not ask themselves what they are able to do, what opportunities they have for functioning” ( 2000 :100). She further buttresses her claims by applying the capabilities criteria to the lives of two Indian women, and concludes they are already thinking, speaking, and acting in accordance with the language of capabilities ( 2000 :106–10). She also argues that capabilities can be realized in multiple ways according to context, etc., and that by positioning capabilities as the goal, the choice is left open whether or not to pursue the accompanying function ( 2000 :105). Nussbaum does not reject human rights discourse altogether, which she also suggests is not exclusively Western, even though it is often thought to be. Rather, she sees human rights frameworks as an important way to achieve capabilities because rights discourses can recognize and justify human capabilities, make claims of entitlement vis-à-vis the democratic state, and emphasize individual choice and autonomy.

To be sure, there have been many critiques of Nussbaum’s work, and I will address only a few critiques in cursory way here. Phillips ( 2001 ) worries that the capabilities approach takes us too far from an agenda of equality, which has been a central preoccupation for many feminists working in the human rights arena. Phillips warns that the capability approach is too focused on the question of freedom of choice, and this can result in unequal outcomes between the sexes. Phillips concludes as well that that there would be little redress for gendered inequalities that the capabilities approach might produce, if in fact a minimum standard of capabilities was in place for everyone. This does not imply equal capabilities but rather relational ones that could be fundamentally premised on sustaining gender inequalities.

Others, such as Quillen ( 2001 ) and Charusheela ( 2008 ), trouble Nussbaum’s attempts at developing a non-ethnocentric universal ethic by which to conceptualize the “human” in the capabilities model. Quillen ( 2001 :89) argues that Nussbaum’s adherence to liberal humanism actually undermines her project because it is an inadequate framework for understanding the intersections and sources of structural oppressions as well as for analyzing the self (see Nussbaum 2001 for her response to Quillen’s critiques). Charusheela ( 2008 ) argues that Nussbaum’s arguments for universality are in fact ethnocentric, due to their location in modernism, which posits a normative ideal based on Western liberal conceptualizations of the democratic state and capitalist system, and their attendant institutions, as the best way to deliver on capabilities. For Charusheela ( 2008 :13) the capabilities approach therefore rests on “an underlying set of assumptions about human nature that masquerades as universal – cognition expressed in particular ways, decisions made in specific ways, reason and voice deployed in ways appropriate to these institutions ” (emphasis in the original). Both Charusheela and Quillen suggest that we should be utilizing postcolonial feminist theories as the way to build a more collective response to social inequalities.

Some feminist human rights theorists are looking to social activism as a way to resolve the tensions between the particular and the universal. Ackerly ( 2001 ) argues that women’s human rights activists generate a cross-cultural theory of human rights that both invokes and contributes to the universal human rights project while at the same time being able to advocate these ideals in locally appropriate ways. Steans ( 2007 ) makes a similar point in her analysis, highlighting the role that conflict, contestation, and reflection play in feminist transnational advocacy networks in forging new understandings about the basis of collective identities and “shared” interests. She suggests that rather than challenging the notion of universal human rights for women, the conflict generated over cultural differences in feminist transnational advocacy networks serves to buttress universality as these conflicts potentially lead to resolutions that are “both more inclusive and better reflect the actual diversity of women” (Steans 2007 :17).

Reilly ( 2007 ) approaches this question through the lens of cosmopolitan feminism and argues that this theoretical perspective rejects the notion that women are united by a common identity or common experience, and can serve as a transformative political framework. Offering up the ICC NGO Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice and PeaceWomen Project focused on the passage and implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (which gender mainstreams security issues) as examples, Reilly suggests that cosmopolitan feminism is a “process-oriented framework wherein the direction and content of feminist practice is determined in cross-boundaries dialogue within and across women’s movements” ( 2007 :182). Reilly suggests that through this framework, a global feminist consciousness can be developed that challenges “false universalisms” predicated on false, but powerful, binaries that construct and maintain gender, race, and class inequalities ( 2007 :187). In challenging these binaries through an intersectional framework, cosmopolitan feminism can “critically [reinterpret] universal values such as the rule of law, human rights, and secular democratic politics” ( 2007 :193).

The feminist cosmopolitan approach is not without its critics, however. Both Kaplan ( 2001 ) and Grewal ( 2005 ) argue that the global feminism envisioned by feminist cosmopolitanism produces a new type of Orientalism that is heavily predicated on rescue discourses, which serve to maintain, rather than transform, existing power inequalities. For example, Kaplan ( 2000 :222) suggests that the “cross-cultural dialogues” central to feminist cosmopolitanism are predicated on the view that “patriarchy and other forms of oppression are […] largely overcome in the metropolitan centers of the West,” necessitating a shift “to the spaces of ‘tradition’ and ‘barbarism’ in the margins – the ‘orient’ or the Third World.” Using Hillary Rodham Clinton ’s appearance at the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women as a focal point of her analysis, Kaplan illustrates how cosmopolitan feminism and its attendant discourses on human rights (which Kaplan argues are still primarily liberal in theoretical orientation) “travel” (literally and figuratively) to “other” parts of the world to facilitate cross-cultural dialogue, which ultimately feminizes and positions the third world as space that needs to be saved, or rescued (Grewal 2005 ).

As a result, “the ‘West’ is uncritically assumed to embody ‘equality’, ‘democracy’, and ‘freedom’ despite its serious involvement and investments in […] systems of oppression and power” (Russo 2006 :573). These critiques are amply demonstrated in two case studies of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s (FMF) work in relation to Afghani women’s rights, in which the FMF relied on rescuing and saving discourses while simultaneously highlighting its work with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) as a project of global (cosmopolitan) feminism throughout its Campaign to End Gender Apartheid (Farrell and McDermott 2005 ; Russo 2006 ).

Grewal’s ( 2005 ) and Kaplan’s ( 2001 ) contention that the cosmopolitan feminist women’s human rights framework constructs difference and produces particular discourses of power and subjects in ways that exempt the West from critical interrogation of their roots in creating and maintaining interlocking systems of oppression are important points to consider in light of Reilly’s arguments, above, in terms of intersectional frameworks. How is difference in terms of intersecting identities as well as agency understood? And, does this approach enable the transcendence of binaries, or recast them, (re)producing both old and new inequalities? Finally, assuming these binaries are contested and transformed, whose “universal” values will be reinterpreted, by whom, and for what ends?

Feminist Futures: Measuring the Achievement of Women’s Human Rights

This essay points to a number of controversies, such as issues regarding culture, sexuality, and neo-imperialism, which need further consideration by feminists. However, the essay has not addressed methodological issues, which are also important for the study and achievement of women’s human rights. Data collection is an important component for a variety of methodological approaches and, as such, deserves further scrutiny here.

During the UN Decade for Women, feminist transnational networks argued for the need to collect sex-disaggregated data. Although heralded by many feminists at the time as a major breakthrough, this has increasingly come under scrutiny. First, there are many provisions in both women’s rights and human rights documents that guarantee a wide range of civil and political liberties and socioeconomic rights but there are actually few data to measure these particular rights. As argued in this essay, feminists conceptualize human rights as something far more complex than the equitable distribution of the presumed benefits and resources of economic development, globalization, and democratization, such as individual empowerment and capacity building, which are difficult to quantify.

Second, because human rights data are often outcomes based and reflect the performance of states, they are actually defined by the public sphere (as are data focused on legally based indicators). As noted earlier in this essay, one of the key insights of feminist human rights scholarship on gender inequality has been its insistence on the interaction of the public and private spheres, and the rejection of this binary as mutually exclusive. That is to say, what happens in the public sphere has ramifications for gender ideology and roles in the private sphere. As such, these measures simply cannot capture the gendered dynamics of the private sphere, which have ideological, physical, and material consequences for the achievement of rights. Because of their inability to capture gendered interactions between the public and private spheres as well as gendered relations within those spheres, the data are at best capturing sex discrimination within the confines of the neoliberal global order rather than the structural feature of gender oppression. In this case, sex is operationalized as an empirical category and gender is an analytical one; yet the sex-disaggregated data are being used as a substitute for “gender.”

Many human rights indicators (though not all) use male experience as the norm, and the achievement of women’s human rights is seen as relative to the rights that men have already achieved. Thus, the typical human rights data show that women are discriminated against in so far as they have not achieved the same rights as men, despite the efforts put forth by many feminists to expand and reframe notions of rights that take into account the difference of women’s and men’s lived realities. Barriteau ( 2006 ), in her study of the Commonwealth Caribbean, argues that composite human rights indicators, such as the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), place too much emphasis on the material relations of power (and empowerment) to the exclusion of the social and ideological relations of power. Thus, the high score of the Commonwealth Caribbean countries on both the GDI and GEM masks the daily realities of gender based oppression in many women’s lives. Because of this, it looks as if women’s human rights have been achieved, and therefore it is very difficult to mount a critical challenge against the indicators. Many feminists are concerned that this type of outcome creates “an impression that women no longer require assistance and that men are now much more needy beneficiaries” and as a result, there will be a “re-masculinization” of both the development and human rights discourses (McIlwaine and Datta 2003 :375).

Adding to these concerns about the type of data used to measure the success or failure of gender mainstreaming human rights, Wood ( 2005 ) raises the important point that the overall ideology of gender mainstreaming human rights in fact homogenizes both men and women and that this homogenization is often mistaken for commonality. Wood argues that the cost of the homogenization of gender in the policy process, even though it is an efficient and expedient way to gender mainstream human rights and development, is the neglect of “difference” within these homogenized categories of men and women. This is a crucial point because the rationale around gender mainstreaming is to understand how certain social and economic policies impact men and women differently, and the data constructed to evaluate this difference reflect this focus. Wood argues that in order for gender mainstreaming to be more effective, more attention must be paid to the differences among women (and by extension among men) in terms of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. By this logic, data collection would have to be transformed. For example, it is not enough to point to the increased numbers of women in parliaments and call it gender mainstreaming human rights success. Additional data need to be known about which women are in these positions, which women are not, and why. This would also tell us something about how patriarchal systems can accommodate a certain amount or type of women seeking power while excluding others (hooks 2000 ).

Gender inequality is not separate from class, race, ethnicity, age, and sexual inequalities. Yet, given the current construction of data, we are forced to construct and evaluate gender equality and the achievement of human rights in very narrow and rigid ways. Though this is already happening to some degree, a future task for feminist scholars and activists is to conceptualize and advocate for human rights data that can capture gender inequality in multidimensional and intersectional ways.

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Links to Digital Materials

Association for Women’s Rights in Development. At www.awid.org , accessed May 11, 2009. Women’s Rights NGO which provides up-to-date news about women’s human rights worldwide, resources, research reports and analysis, and job listings in the field.

Center for Reproductive Law. At www.reproductiverights.org/ , accessed May 11, 2009. A non-profit legal advocacy organization for the protection of reproductive rights worldwide. Provides information on current events related to reproductive rights laws globally, in-depth analyses by region, country, and issue information about litigation, and assessments of the UN and other international organizations.

Human Rights Watch, Women’s Rights page. At www.hrw.org/en/category/topic/women%E2%80%99s-rights , accessed May 11, 2009. Provides news updates and in-depth reports on a range of women’s human rights issues, such as domestic and sexual violence, HIV/AIDS, labor, security, and migration.

MADRE. At www.madre.org , accessed May 11, 2009. A women’s human rights NGO. Provides resource information and information on current campaigns.

UN Beijing Platform for Action (1995). At www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/ , accessed May 11, 2009. Provides the full text to the PFA. Includes links to information about the Beijing Conference on Women, country statements, Beijing +5, and Beijing +10.

UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). At www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/cedaw.htm , accessed May 11, 2009. Provides the full text of the convention in all of the official UN languages. Includes a list of states, parties, and reservations to the convention, and country reports. Access to the text of the CEDAW Optional Protocol.

UN GenderInfo Database. At www.devinfo.info/genderinfo/ , accessed May 11, 2009. Searchable database of sex disaggregated statistics related to the following sectors: education, families, health and nutrition, population, public life, and work.

UN Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women Gender Mainstreaming Page. At www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/gendermainstreaming.htm , accessed May 11, 2009. This page provides information on the concepts and definitions used to guide the practice of gender mainstreaming of women’s human rights in the UN system. Provides examples of good practices.

UN WomenWatch. At www.un.org/womenwatch/ , accessed May 11, 2009. Inter-agency information center on all women’s issues at the UN. Provides links to news and highlights, events, current campaigns, publications, websites and videos, statistical data, and all agencies working on issues related to women’s rights, development, and gender mainstreaming.

Women, Environment, and Development Organization (WEDO). At www.wedo.org/ , accessed May 11, 2009. A women’s human rights and development NGO which features an extensive online library on a variety of topics ranging from climate change to trade and their impact on achieving gender equality. Also provides in-depth reports and fact-sheets.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to: Brooke Ackerly , the editor of the FTGS section’s contribution to the compendium, and Andrea Gerlak , Managing Editor of the ISA compendium, for their encouragement and support; Zehra Arat, for her helpful suggestions and coordination of the reviewers’ comments; the two anonymous reviewers, whose comments helped sharpen and deepen this essay; Shannon Mcleod , for her editorial and research assistance; and Mindy McGarrah Sharp , for her administrative assistance. All remaining errors and inaccuracies are, of course, attributable solely to the author.

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Photo essay - Generation Equality: The time is now!

Date: 13 March 2020

The 64th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women took stock, assessed gaps, and charted a path forward for fulfilling the promise of gender equality enshrined in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 25 years after its adoption.

This photo essay is an adaptation of an exhibit at the United Nations Headquarters, running from 6 March – 20 April. It presents key milestones in the women’s rights movement, the progress and pushback, and voices and aspirations of women leaders from every corner of the world.

Women have always made a difference…everywhere

400 BC, Greece

10th – 11th Century, Japan

1199 – 1267, Tunisia

1581 – 1663, Angola

1648 – 1695, Mexico

1686 – 1755, Jamaica

1815 – 1852, United Kingdom

But they have faced many obstacles to equality.

Until women started to organize and protest inequality, the vast majority could not vote or run for office. They were prohibited from getting a loan or working where they choose.Even if they did the same work as men, they were paid less. And they inherited less, if at all. At home, domestic violence took place with no legal sanction. A married woman could not even prosecute her husband for rape.

So women decided “Let's make some change!”

United states.

Indignant over women being barred from speaking at an anti-slavery convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott congregate a few hundred people at their nation’s first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Together they demand civil, social, political and religious rights for women in a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.”

New Zealand

32,000 people sign a “monster” 270-metre-long suffrage petition presented to New Zealand’s Parliament. Soon after, New Zealand becomes the first self-governing nation to allow women to vote and inspires suffragists across the globe.

First International Women's Day

On 8 March, the first International Women’s Day amasses more than 1 million people for women’s suffrage and labour rights. In its early years, the Day becomes a mechanism to protest World War I. Most notably, in Russia, a large women-led demonstration breaks out demanding “bread and peace!” Four days later, the Czar abdicates. Some historians believe the Day ignited the Russian Revolution.

In the first-known campaign of its kind, the Egyptian Society of Physicians goes against tradition by declaring the negative health effects of female genital mutilation. It takes until the late 20th century before the practice is explicitly classified as a form of violence. Today, the United Nations, grass-roots women’s movements, civil society and others are working together to put an end to it.

Incensed by their social standing under colonial rule, Igbo women send palm leaves — similar to today’s Facebook invite — to their fellow sisters across South-eastern Nigeria. Together they descend in the thousands to “sit on” or make “war on” undemocratically appointed chiefs by publicly shaming them through singing, dancing, banging on their walls and even tearing down roofs. This eventually forces the chiefs to resign and results in the dropping of market taxes imposed on women.

What would you do without clean clothes for weeks? In 1945, Dubliners in Ireland learn the hard way. Tired of unhealthy work conditions, low wages, overtime and limited leave, around 1,500 unionized laundresses go on strike. Commercial laundries get hit, a big business at the time. More than three months (and lots of dirty clothes) later, the strike ends in victory and gives all Irish workers a statutory second week of annual holidays.

Dominican Republic

A symbol of popular feminist resistance, the Mirabal sisters — Minerva, María Teresa, and Patria — also known as Las Mariposas (the butterflies) form an opposition movement to openly protest the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. On 25 November, the sisters are assassinated. The reaction to the brutal murders shakes the dictatorship and contributes to its eventual downfall. Since then, people around the world have marked 25 November as a day to raise awareness of ending violence against women.

25,000 women, a tenth of the nation’s population, gather in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, to protest economic inequality. The “Women’s Day Off” puts the city’s services, schools and businesses at a virtual standstill.

A protracted civil war impels thousands of Liberian women to form a movement. Driven by activist Leymah Gbowee, the movement employs various tactics, most notably: a sex strike to pressure men to partake in peace talks. The movement is so successful it ends a 14-year civil war and leads to the election of Africa’s first woman head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

In Uttar Pradesh state, a handful of bamboo-wielding women take matters into their own hands when they hear of a neighbour abusing his wife. Together, they force the husband to acknowledge the abuse and put a stop to it. A modest movement on domestic abuse snowballs into a statewide one: Today, a “gang” of tens of thousands of women dressed in pink (gulabi) collectively tackle social injustices against women in the state and are inspiring similar uprisings in the nation.

Arab Region

Streams of women vigorously protest for their rights as part of a broader uprising: the pan-Arab movement. The outcry thrusts women into the global limelight. In Tunisia, activism leads to gender equality being enshrined in the nation’s new constitution; in Lebanon, campaigning leads to the scrapping of a controversial law allowing rapists to avoid prison by marrying their victims.

3.5 to 5.5 million people globally attend the “women’s marches” on 21 January to show solidarity for women’s rights. They are among numerous mass movements that mark the decade, including: in India, following the gang rape of a student; across Latin America after a succession of femicides; and in Nigeria, following the kidnapping of almost 280 school girls

The movement goes global

Since the founding of the United Nations, a timeline of the landmark international agreements and conferences that pushed for women’s rights and gender equality.

The world is closer to gender equality than ever before. Still, we have much work ahead. Discriminatory laws in some places still mean that:

• Women inherit nothing or less than their brothers
• A woman’s testimony counts for half of that of a man’s
• Labour laws restrict the types of jobs women can take
• Women can be beaten with impunity
• Women cannot pass on citizenship in the same way as men
• Homosexuality is a criminal offense

The rise of digital activism

The hashtags say it all: Women, girls and people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities want a life free of violence and a gender-equal world. The digital space has amplified feminist voices, sparked transformations and brought a surge of young activists to the vanguard of movements for equality.

Generation Equality takes the stage

2020 marks the 25 th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. It is a time to celebrate progress, but also to recognize that change has been too slow. Forces are at work to reverse some advances that have been made.

Not a single country today has fully achieved gender equality . Women everywhere still put more hours into unpaid care work, earn less, occupy fewer leadership positions, and risk violence at home and in public spaces. Adding to their struggles are complex and escalating crises, from conflict to climate change to narrowing hopes for decent work.

The movement for gender equality must continue and grow . Around the world, UN Women is connecting a vibrant young generation of women’s rights activists with the visionaries who created the Platform for Action, and everyone in between.

Together, they are Generation Equality. Their brave and energizing cry: finish the unfinished business of achieving gender equality . End imbalances in power and resources that have brought the world to the brink of a planetary crisis. Advance the rights of women and girls as indispensable to economic, social and environmental justice for all.

Progress and pushback. What needs to be done?

Remove discriminatory laws and practices

Progress: Between 2008 and 2017, 131 countries adopted legal reforms related to gender equality. Progress was most significant in sub-Saharan Africa.

Problem: Yet over 2.5 billion women and girls still live in countries with at least one discriminatory law. And even with legal equality on paper, gaps remain in upholding laws.

We can do better: Eliminate discriminatory laws. Close disparities in women and girls realizing their legal rights.

Make economies work for women

Progress: More women are in the paid workforce than ever before.

Problem: Globally, the gender gap in labour force participation is still 31 percentage points. Women do three times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men. Those aged 25-34, many of whom have small children, are 25 per cent more likely than men to live in extreme poverty.

We can do better: Expand universal care services. Uphold labour rights and create more decent work. Extend social protection and financial services. Harness new technology sothat it empowers women and girls.

Invest real money to achieve gender equality

Progress: The Platform for Action was never costed, although a growing number of countries use tools such as gender budgets to track whether or not public spending aligns with gender advances.

Problem: Shortfalls in financing are obvious across the board, keeping girls out of school, slowing progress on maternal mortality and constraining the response to gender-based violence, among many other issues.

We can do better: Mobilize and allocate resources in ways that are progressive, sustainable and gender-responsive.

Back women leaders at the forefront of change

Progress: Strong and autonomous feminist movements drive progress on gender equality. Women leaders have made their mark across public institutions, and in business, the arts, the media and beyond.

Problem: Spaces for women to lead and participate are shrinking. Some outspoken activists put their lives on the line. Globally, men control more than three-quarters of seats in parliaments. In 2018, only a dismal 7.7 per cent of peace agreements had provisions responsive to gender.

For more voices from Generation Equality and to get involved, visit https://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved/beijing-plus-25

Get involved

Join UN Women’s Generation Equality campaign today.

This is your chance to show the world that you stand on the right side of history. So, what are you waiting for? Voice your commitment to an equal future on social media, using #GenerationEquality! You can download cool GIFs, slogans and more in our social media package . Sign up for monthly newsletters for more stories from around the world.

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Background Essay: Shall Women Have the Right to Vote (1866-1890)

Directions:

Keep these discussion questions in mind as you read the background essay, making marginal notes as desired. Respond to the reflection and analysis questions at the end of the essay.

Discussion Questions

• How had the work of women to end slavery helped them develop skills that would ultimately be useful in the women’s suffrage struggle?
• What might be meant by the term, “the conscience of the nation,” and how did the fight against slavery help demonstrate that concept?
• What arguments might have been made against women’s suffrage?
• Why were Western states the first to grant suffrage to women?

Introduction

After the Civil War, the nation was finally poised to extend the promise of liberty expressed in the Declaration of Independence to newly emancipated African Americans. But the women’s suffrage movement was split: Should women push to be included in the Fifteenth Amendment? Should they wait for the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to be adopted before turning to women’s suffrage, or should they seize the moment and demand the vote now? Not content to wait, Susan B. Anthony and other workers in the movement engaged in civil disobedience to wake the conscience of a nation. Meanwhile, railroads opened the West to settlement, and Western territories tried to boost population by offering votes for women.

Life for women in the mid-nineteenth century was as diverse as it is now. What was considered socially appropriate behavior for women varied widely across the country, based on region, social class, and other factors. Branches of the women’s suffrage movement disagreed regarding tactics, and some women (and many men) did not even believe women’s suffrage was appropriate or necessary. Ideals of the Cult of Domesticity, in which women were believed to possess the natural virtues of piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness, were still a powerful influence on culture. An important debate and split in the women’s suffrage movement between a state and national strategy emerged during this period.

The Cult of True Womanhood

The Cult of Domesticity, also known as the Cult of True Womanhood, affirmed the idea that natural differences between the sexes meant women, especially those of the upper and middle classes, were too delicate for work outside the home. According to this view, such women were more naturally suited to parenting, teaching, and making homes, which were their natural “sphere,” happy and peaceful for their families. In other words, it was unnatural and unladylike for women to work outside the home.

Educator and political activist Catharine Beecher wrote in 1871, “Woman’s great mission is to train immature, weak, and ignorant creatures [children] to obey the laws of God . . . first in the family, then in the school, then in the neighborhood, then in the nation, then in the world.” For Beecher and other writers, the role of homemaker was held up as an honored and dignified position for women, worthy of high esteem. Their contribution to public life would include managing the home in a manner that would support their husbands. According to this conception of the roles of men and women, men were considered to be exhausted, soiled, and corrupted by their participation in work and politics, and needed a peaceful, pure home life to enable them to recover their virtue.

Increasingly, women found their political voice through their work in social reform movements. Jane Addams, co-founder with Helen Gates Starr of Hull House and pioneer of social work in America, wrote in 1902, “The sphere of morals is the sphere of action . . . It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that ‘Ethics’ is but another word for ‘righteousness . . . ’” She noted that, to solve problems related to the needs of children, public health, and other social concerns that affected the home, women needed the vote.

In keeping with the feminine ideals of piety and purity, many women continued work within the temperance movement to campaign against the excesses of drunkenness. This cause was considered a socially permissible moral effort through which women could participate in public life, because of the damaging effects of alcohol abuse on the family. Annie Wittenmyer, a social reformer and war widow from Ohio who had reported on terrible hospital conditions during the Civil War, founded the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1874 to build support for the idea of abstaining from alcohol use.

According to the tradition of Republican Motherhood, education should prepare girls to become mothers who raised educated citizens for the republic. In a challenge to the Cult of Domesticity, the latter half of the nineteenth century saw an expansion of broader academic opportunities for upper class females of college age in the United States. In the Northeast, liberal arts schools modeled after Wesleyan College (1836) in Macon, Georgia, opened. In 1844, Hillsdale College opened in Michigan, one of the first American colleges whose charter prohibited any discrimination based on race, religion, or sex. Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, founded in 1861, and Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, founded in 1875, also expanded educational opportunities for women. Teaching was among the first professions women entered in large numbers. During and after the Civil War, new opportunities also developed for women to become nurses.

New York City — The sewing-room at A.T. Stewart’s, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, Broadway and Fourth Avenue / Hyde, 1875. Library of Congress.

The Changing Roles of Women

While these career options did not radically challenge the cultural ideal of traditional womanhood, the work landscape of America was changing. As the United States economy grew to provide more options, people began to see themselves as consumers as well as producers. Indeed, mass consumerism drove new manufacturing methods. During the second industrial revolution, the United States started moving from an agricultural economy toward incorporating new modes of production, manufacturing, and consumer behavior.

Young working-class women worked in the same laundries, factories, and textile mills as poor and immigrant men, often spending twelve hours a day, seven days a week, in hot, dangerous conditions. Also, women found work as store clerks in the many new department stores that opened to sell factory-made clothing and other mass-produced items.

The Suffrage Movement Grows

Women continued to work to secure their right to vote. The Civil War ended in April of 1865 and the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified eight months later, banning slavery throughout the United States. A burning question remained: How would the rights of former slaves be protected? As the nation’s attention turned to civil rights and voting with the debates surrounding the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, many women hoped to seize the opportunity to gain the vote alongside African American men.

The Civil War had forced women’s suffrage advocates to pause their efforts toward winning the vote, but in 1866 they came together at the eleventh National Women’s Rights Convention in New York. The group voted to call itself the American Equal Rights Association and work for the rights of all Americans. Appealing to the Cult of Domesticity, they argued that giving women the vote would improve government by bringing women’s virtues of piety and purity into politics, resulting in a more civilized, “maternal commonwealth.”

The Movement Splits

The American Equal Rights Association seemed poised for success with such well-known leaders as Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, and Frederick Douglass. But internal divisions soon became clear. Whose rights should be secured first? Some, especially former abolitionist leaders, wanted to wait until newly emancipated African American men had been given the vote before working to win it for women. Newspaper editor Horace Greeley urged, “This is a critical period for the Republican Party and the life of our Nation . . . I conjure you to remember that this is ‘the negro’s hour,’ and your first duty now is to go through the State and plead his claims.” Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe agreed.

But for Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the time for women also was now. Along with many others, they saw the move to put the cause of women’s suffrage on hold as a betrayal of both the principles of equality and republicanism. Frederick Douglass, who saw suffrage for African American men as a matter of life or death, challenged Anthony on this question, asking whether she believed granting women the vote would truly do anything to change the inequality under law between the sexes. Without missing a beat, Anthony responded:

“ It will change the nature of one thing very much, and that is the dependent condition of woman. It will place her where she can earn her own bread, so that she may go out into the world an equal competitor in the struggle for life.”

In the wake of this bitter debate, not one but two national organizations for women’s suffrage were established in 1869. Stone and Blackwell founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Worried that the Fifteenth Amendment would not pass if it included votes for women, the AWSA put their energy into convincing the individual states to give women the vote in their state constitutions. Anthony and Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). They worked to win votes for women via an amendment to the U.S. Constitution at the same time as it would protect the right of former slaves to vote. Anthony and Stanton started the NWSA’s newspaper, The Revolution, in 1868. Its motto was, “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.”

The NWSA was a broad coalition that included some progressives who questioned the fitness of African Americans and immigrants to vote because of the prevailing views of Social Darwinism. The racism against black males voting was especially prevalent in the South where white women supported women’s suffrage as a means of preserving white supremacy. In addition, throughout the country strong sentiment reflected the view that any non-white or immigrant individual was racially inferior and too ignorant to vote. In this vein, Anthony and Stanton used racially charged language in advocating for an educational requirement to vote. Unfortunately for many, universal suffrage challenged too many of their assumptions about the prevailing social structure.

Photograph of Lucy Stone between 1840 and 1860. Library of Congress.

The New Departure: Testing the Fourteenth Amendment

But there was another amendment which interested NWSA: the Fourteenth. In keeping with NWSA’s more confrontational approach, Anthony decided to test the meaning of the newly ratified Fourteenth Amendment. The Amendment stated in part, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…” Anthony thought it was clear that this language protected the right of women to vote. After all, wasn’t voting a privilege of citizens?

The Fourteenth Amendment went on to state that representation in Congress would be reduced for states which denied the vote to male inhabitants over 21. In other words, states could choose to deny men over 21 the vote, but they would be punished with proportionally less representation (and therefore less power) in Congress. So in the end, the Fourteenth Amendment encouraged states to give all men over 21 the vote, but did not require it. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, banned states from denying the vote based on race, color, or having been enslaved in the past.

Susan B. Anthony on Trial

It was the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of “privileges or immunities” that Anthony decided to test. On November 5, 1872, she and two dozen other women walked into the local polling place in Rochester, New York, and cast a vote in the presidential election. (Anthony voted for Ulysses S. Grant.) She was arrested and charged with voting in a federal election “without having a lawful right to vote.”

Before her trial, 52-year-old Anthony traveled all over her home county giving a speech entitled “Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?” In it, she called on all her fellow citizens, from judges to potential jurors, to support equal rights for women.

At her trial, Anthony’s lawyer pointed out the unequal treatment under the law:

“ If this same act [voting] had been done by her brother, it would have been honorable. But having been done by a woman, it is said to be a crime . . . I believe this is the first instance in which a woman has been arraigned [accused] in a criminal court merely on account of her sex.”

The judge refused to let Anthony testify in her own defense, found her guilty of voting without the right to do so, and ordered her to pay a $100 fine. Anthony responded:

“ In your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled underfoot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights are all alike ignored . . . I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women.” She concluded by quoting Thomas Jefferson: “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”

Anthony’s case did not make it all the way to the Supreme Court. However, the Court did rule three years later in a different case, Minor v. Happersett (1875), that voting was not among the privileges or immunities of citizens and the Fourteenth Amendment did not protect a woman’s right to vote.

A caricature of Susan B. Anthony that appeared in a New York newspaper right before her trial. Thomas Wust, June 5, 1873. Library of Congress.

Suffrage in the West

While Anthony and other suffragists were agitating in the Northeast, railroads had helped open up the Great Plains and the American West to settlement. The Gold Rush of 1849 had enticed many thousands of settlers to the rugged West, and homesteading pioneers continued to push the frontier. These territories (and later states), were among the first to give women the right to vote: Wyoming Territory in 1869, followed by Utah Territory (1870), and Washington Territory (1883).

These territories had many reasons for extending suffrage to women, most related to the need to increase population. They would need to meet minimum population requirements to apply for statehood, and the free publicity they would get for giving women the vote might bring more people. And they did not just need more people—they needed women: There were six males for every female in some places. Some were motivated to give white women the vote to offset the influence of African American votes. And finally, there were, of course, those who genuinely believed that giving women the vote was the right thing to do.

Though several western legislatures had considered proposals to give women the vote since the 1850s, in 1869 Wyoming became the first territory to give women full political rights, including voting and eligibility to hold public office. In 1870, Louisa Garner Swain was the first woman in Wyoming to cast a ballot, and a life-sized statue honors her memory in Laramie.

Under territorial government, Wyoming’s population had grown slowly and most people lived on ranches or in small towns. Territorial leaders believed Wyoming would be more attractive to newcomers once statehood was achieved, as had been the case in other western states. The territory came close to reaching the threshold of 60,000 people for statehood, but many doubted whether that number had actually been reached.

Territorial Governor Francis E. Warren refused to wait for more people to move there. He set in motion the plans for a constitutional convention. Though they had the right to do so, no women ran for seats at the Wyoming constitutional convention. Borrowing passages from other state constitutions, delegates quickly drafted the constitution in September 1889. The new element of this constitution is that it enshrined the protections of women’s political rights by simply stating that equality would exist without reference to gender. Only one delegate, Louis J. Palmer, objected to women’s suffrage. Wyoming voters approved the document in November, and the territory applied for statehood.

In the House of Representatives there was some opposition, mostly from Democrats, because the territory was known to lean Republican. Debate did not openly center on party affiliation, but on a combination of doubts about whether Wyoming had truly achieved the required population and on reluctance to admit a state where women had political rights. In response, Wyoming’s legislature sent a telegram: “We will remain out of the Union a hundred years rather than come in without our women!” Wyoming officially joined the union in 1890, becoming the 44th state. Anthony praised Wyoming for its adherence to the nation’s Founding principles: “Wyoming is the first place on God’s green earth which could consistently claim to be the land of the free!”

Representative Women, seven prominent figures of the suffrage and women’s rights movement. Clockwise from the top: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Livermore, Lydia Marie Child, Susan B. Anthony, Grace Greenwood, and Anna E. Dickinson (center). L. Schamer; L. Prang & Co. publisher, 1870. Library of Congress.

REFLECTION AND ANALYSIS QUESTIONS

• What was the Cult of True Womanhood, or Cult of Domesticity?
• How did the Industrial Revolution challenge the notion that upper- and middle-class women’s bodies were too delicate for work outside the home?
• Describe the events leading to the split in the women’s movement in 1869.
• What are some actions in which Susan B. Anthony worked for the cause of women’s suffrage in a very personal way?
• The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified
• Susan B. Anthony is jailed for voting
• Western territories give women the vote
• Other (explain)
• Principles: equality, republican/representative government, popular sovereignty, federalism, inalienable rights, freedom of speech/press/assembly
• Virtues: perseverance, contribution, moderation, resourcefulness, courage, respect, justice

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• Black Americans Firmly Support Gender Equality but Are Split on Transgender and Nonbinary Issues   

Nearly six-in-ten want organizations working for Black progress to address the distinct challenges facing Black LGBTQ people

Table of contents.

• Black adults differ by gender and education in their views on the progress of gender equality
• Gender, faith and family
• Black adults say feminism has had a significant impact on women’s rights
• How Black Americans describe feminism
• 3. Black Americans’ views on transgender and nonbinary issues
• Acknowledgments
• The four studies

In recent years, Pew Research Center has conducted multiple studies that focus on gender and gender identity. This analysis of Black Americans’ views on gender equality, gender roles, feminism, and transgender and nonbinary issues relies on data from four of these focused surveys.

The first was conducted among 8,660 Black adults (ages 18 and older) from Nov. 19, 2019, to June 3, 2020. It contains data from four sources: Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (conducted online), NORC’s AmeriSpeak panel (conducted online or by phone), Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel (conducted online) and a national cross-sectional survey by the Center (conducted online and by mail). This survey provided the data on Black adults’ views on gender, faith and family discussed in this report. For more information on this study, see its methodology and questionnaire .  

The second was conducted online among 3,143 U.S. adults (ages 18 and older) from March 18 to April 1, 2020, on Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. There were 705 Black adults in the sample. This survey provided the data on the public’s views of gender equality and feminism discussed in this report. For more information on this study, see its methodology and questionnaire .

The third survey was conducted online among 3,912 Black adults (ages 18 and older) from Oct. 4 to 17, 2021. The survey includes 1,025 Black adults on the Center’s American Trends Panel and 2,887 Black adults on Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. This survey provided the data on Black adults’ views of intersectional issues and their concerns about discrimination against LGBTQ people. For more information on this study, see its methodology and questionnaire .

The fourth survey was conducted online among 10,188 U.S. adults (ages 18 and older) from May 16 to 22, 2022, using the Center’s American Trends Panel. There were 799 Black adults in the sample. This survey provided the data on the public’s views of transgender and nonbinary issues discussed in this report. For more information on this study, see its methodology and questionnaire . Read more on how we measured the share of the U.S. population that is transgender or nonbinary .

Respondents in each study were recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. Recruiting panelists by mail ensures that nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole population (see our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling).

The terms “Black Americans,” “Black adults” and “Black people” are used interchangeably throughout this report to refer to U.S. adults who self-identify as Black. These terms refer to Black adults who are single-race Black and say they have no Hispanic background, unless otherwise noted.

Throughout this report, educational descriptors are shortened to denote the following: “High school or less” indicates Black adults who have obtained a high school diploma or lower level of education, and “some college experience” or “with college experience” indicate Black adults who either attended college and obtained an associate degree but not a bachelor’s degree, or who attended college without obtaining any degree.   

The acronym “LGBTQ” collectively refers to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.

The term “transgender” is used here to refer to people whose gender is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. This includes, but is not limited to, transgender men (that is, men who were assigned female at birth) and transgender women (women who were assigned male at birth).

The term “nonbinary” refers to people who are neither a man nor a woman or who aren’t strictly one or the other. Some, but not all, nonbinary participants also consider themselves to be transgender. Read more on how we measured the share of the U.S. population that is transgender or nonbinary .

The phrase “gender equality” is used throughout this report to refer to the extent to which women and men have equal rights, opportunities and access to resources in the United States.

Discussions about gender equality and feminism have a long history among Black Americans. Some hallmarks of this history are Maria Miller Stewart publicly affirming the place of Black women as abolitionist leaders in Boston in 1832; the Combahee River Collective ’s formative statement on the intersection of race, gender, class and sexuality in 1977; Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991; and the ongoing discussions about how women are represented in rap music , both as subjects and performers of songs. These often-contentious debates raise questions about the relative importance of gender and other inequalities among Black Americans, given the long history of racial inequality in the United States.

To be sure, about six-in-ten non-Hispanic Black adults 1 (62%) say Black people should prioritize the struggle against racism over other inequalities, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey of Black adults. Meanwhile, three-in-ten Black adults say the opposite: that racism should not be prioritized over other inequalities. Among the 30% who say racism should not be prioritized, most say this is because racism is just as important as other inequalities or that racism is interconnected with other inequalities. 

Although most Black Americans view the fight against racism as their primary struggle for progress, they also support women’s equality and think feminism has been a positive force for women overall and for Black women specifically, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults.  

About eight-in-ten non-Hispanic Black adults say it is very important for women to have equal rights with men (79%). The majority of Black adults (76%) also say the feminist movement has done a great deal or a fair amount to advance women’s rights. And about half of Black adults say feminism has helped Black women (49%).

These findings stand in stark contrast to the contentious history that Black Americans have had with the feminist movement. Black women were relegated to the back of feminist marches in the 19th century, if not completely excluded. Black women redefined their approach to women’s equality, and even renamed it “womanism” to make it more inclusive of their needs and to reject the exclusion they had experienced in feminist organizations. 

This history provides context for the findings of the 2020 survey, which indicate that about two-thirds (68%) of Black adults view feminism as empowering, but nearly half (48%) would not use the term “feminist” to describe themselves. 

Black adults are split over how much society should accept transgender people

According to the Williams Institute, at least 1 million Black adults in the U.S. are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), making up 12% of the nation’s LGBT population. LGBT Black Americans are younger than non-LGBT Black adults, with nearly 60% under age 35 compared with 34% of non-LGBT Black adults. Women comprise a larger share of LGBT Black adults than of non-LGBT Black adults, and LGBT Black adults are slightly less likely to live in the South than the rest of the Black population.

Black LGBT and non-LGBT adults do not differ in their sense of belonging to their own race. Nearly half of both groups say they feel connected to Black communities. And 62% of Black lesbian, gay or bisexual adults and 29% of Black transgender adults say they feel a part of the larger LGBT community, the Williams Institute has found.

Still, over half of Black LGBT adults (55%) say the city or area they live in is not a good place for transgender people, and 39% say their areas are not safe for lesbian, gay or bisexual people . In fact, the majority of Black LGBT people say they have experienced verbal insults or abuse (79%) or have been threatened with violence (60%).

The social difficulties that Black LGBT people experience are reflected in Black Americans’ views on gender identity issues, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults. Only 13% of non-Hispanic Black adults say that U.S. society is extremely or very accepting of transgender people.

However, Black adults are split in their views on how accepting society should be. While 36% say society has not gone far enough in accepting people who are transgender, 31% say the level of acceptance in society has been about right and 29% say it has gone too far. And while about four-in-ten Black adults (41%) say views about transgender people and issues are changing at the right speed, roughly a third (34%) say they are changing too quickly. 

These divergent points of view exist alongside each other, demonstrating that Black Americans’ views on gender identity issues show much less consensus than their views on gender equality.

The findings in this report emerge from four Pew Research Center surveys of U.S. adults conducted from 2019 to 2022. Using multiple Center surveys provides a unique opportunity to summarize Black Americans’ views on gender equality and gender identity in the United States in the broadest scope. The report provides context for Black Americans’ views on and experiences with current issues of national importance, such as their majority disapproval of the overturning of Roe v. Wade (67%) and the disproportionate number of Black transgender and nonbinary people who experience fatal violence .  

Here are other findings presented in this report:  

Black Americans are critical of the progress of women’s equality in the U.S. About seven-in-ten Black adults (69%) say that the U.S. has not gone far enough in giving women equal rights with men. And among those who say this, a quarter say it’s not too or not at all likely that there will be equal rights between women and men in the future. 

Black Americans are more likely to have egalitarian views about gender roles than their houses of worship. Black adults believe that mothers and fathers who live in the same household should share parenting (86%) and financial responsibilities (73%). However, the majority of Black Americans who attend religious services at least a few times a year say their congregations are more likely to emphasize men’s financial role in the family and involvement in Black communities as role models than women’s family and community roles.  

Black Americans are more likely to know someone who is transgender or nonbinary than to identify as such themselves. About 1.4% of Black adults are transgender or nonbinary. However, 35% of Black adults say they know someone who is transgender. And among those who have heard at least a little about people who do not identify as a man or woman, 26% say they know someone who identifies this way. 

CORRECTION (Feb. 27, 2023): In Chapter 3, the chart “Nearly six-in-ten Black adults say Black organizations should address the challenges Black LGBTQ people face,” the rows for women and men have been edited to correct an inversion in the percentages of Black women and Black men who think organizations should address challenges that Black gay and lesbian people face. These figures are 62% and 51%, respectively. These numbers were referenced correctly in the body of the report, and the changes did not affect the report’s substantive findings.

• The terms “Black Americans,” “Black adults” and “Black people” are used interchangeably throughout this report to refer to U.S. adults who are single-race Black and have no Hispanic background, unless otherwise noted. ↩

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Unpacking 5 truths about equality in sexual and reproductive health and rights today

• 16 April 2024

UNITED NATIONS, New York – Over the past 30 years, global commitments to sexual and reproductive health and rights have made remarkable advances: Maternal death rates have dropped by almost a third, the number of women using modern contraception has doubled and more than 160 countries have passed laws against domestic violence.

A new report by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, traces the path that led to this progress and empowered millions with increased freedom and autonomy. But it also lays bare how little these improvements have affected the world’s poorest and most marginalized, for whom rights and choices remain largely out of reach.

These disparate realities are driven by inequality and discrimination, often hidden within our health systems and economic, social and political institutions. Achieving equity, then, requires exposing inequalities so that inclusive solutions can be imagined and implemented.

Below, read about where and how inequality shows up in our societies, lifting some communities up while pushing others behind – and about what can be done to counteract it and ensure a peaceful, prosperous future for all.

1. Inequalities in sexual and reproductive health and rights are everywhere .

In Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Alia* and her husband were told that it was “undesirable” for them to have a baby. The reason? They were both blind.

Women and girls with disabilities often face discrimination when it comes to sexual and reproductive health, limited access to services and exclusion from comprehensive sexuality education. Some are even forcibly sterilized.

The particular challenges Alia and other women with disabilities face during pregnancy and childbirth reinforce one of the report’s main themes: That access to health and rights vary greatly from one region, country and person to another.

Disability status represents just one facet of identity that affects the right to health. Geography is another, with women in Africa around 130 times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than women in Europe. And as for women and girls from ethnic minorities, disparities in health-care access were found in all countries surveyed for UNFPA’s report.

2. Progress on sexual and reproductive health for all is stalling, and by many counts, unravelling.

For nearly 20 years, the global annual reduction in maternal deaths has been zero – meaning there has been no progress. Meanwhile, one quarter of women today report not being able to say no to sex with their husband or partner.

This means that despite investments, advocacy and rafts of legislation, women’s ability to exercise decision-making over their own bodies is diminishing. And while barriers to health have fallen quickly for the most privileged, they are standing firm for the most disadvantaged.

“Even in better-off countries, maternal death rates are higher among communities that continue to confront racial and other prejudices in everyday life,” UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem said in her World Health Day statement . “We can and must do better.”

3. Sexual and reproductive health and rights are being politicized – and opinions polarized.

As half the world goes to the polls this year, many leaders have decided to base their political strategies on sowing division.

Anxieties over migration as well as low- and high-fertility rates are being weaponized by some policymakers to strike down sexual and reproductive health and rights agreements. Meanwhile others are making their legal systems less equitable by decriminalizing female genital mutilation or restricting the rights of LGBTQIA+ people, for instance.

Harmful stereotypes about women, girls and people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities are too often peddled to justify gender inequality and homophobia, with dangerous consequences. As Efram*, a refugee from Syria who was struggling to access sexual health care in a new country, explained to UNFPA: “I can’t tell anyone that I’m gay because of the stigma. We are not recognized, and we don’t have any kind of rights”.

4.But there is hope: Where inequalities exist, community leaders are helping to bridge gaps in services.

Gender inequality, racial discrimination and misinformation are deeply embedded in many health systems: UNFPA research has found that in the Americas, Afrodescendent women are more likely to die during childbirth due in part to racist abuse in the health sector.

For these reasons and others – including cost and distance to facilities – Afrodescendent women may avoid going to hospitals for health care. “It wasn’t the environment I wanted,” Shirley Maturana Obregón from Colombia told UNFPA about her birth plan.

Instead, she delivered with a partera, a traditional birth attendant and practitioner of knowledge ancestral to Colombia’s Afrodescendent community.

Parteras provide culturally sensitive care among Colombian communities that remain largely disconnected from the country’s formal health system – and for whom getting to a doctor can require expensive travel across hazardous, conflict-affected terrain.

Ms. Maturana Obregón said her delivery with a partera was beautiful and unforgettable; she later became a traditional birth attendant herself. “We are there, making women’s dreams come true,” she said.

5. Progress is achievable, but we must reject division and embrace collaboration.

UNFPA’s report shows above all that we cannot divide and conquer on our way to ensuring universal health and rights. Rather, we must find political consensus, tailor solutions to communities and mobilize urgent funding to achieve our aims.

Grassroots leaders are essential to this work: Sarah Sy Savané, who advocates against female genital mutilation and child marriage in Côte d’Ivoire, says programmes aimed at eliminating harmful practices are designed by people working in the communities they target. “Safe spaces, husbands’ clubs and other interventions are making a real difference, shining a light where young girls thought they had no rights,” she told UNFPA.

Initiatives like these have tangible impacts, but they need more support. Spending an additional $79 billion in low- and middle-income countries by 2030 would avert 400 million unplanned pregnancies, save 1 million lives and generate $660 billion in economic benefits. Training more midwives could also prevent about 40 per cent of maternal and neonatal deaths and over a quarter of stillbirths. 

Funding saves lives, while a lack of investment endangers them.

The truth is that inequality is everywhere we look – and once its devastating consequences have been revealed, they cannot be unseen. As UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem said, “We have every reason to act – for human rights, for gender equality, for justice and for the world’s bottom line.

There is only one way to achieve a future of dignity and rights for all: By working together.”

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Women Artists Are Catching Up, but Equality Will Still Take a While

An exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts features an array of artists sharing their views of an increasingly complex world.

By Eilene Zimmerman

This article is part of our Museums special section about how institutions are striving to offer their visitors more to see, do and feel.

Late one night a few years ago, the multidisciplinary artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya was finishing up a sprawling public installation she had created in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. A couple walked by, she recalled, and, clearly impressed, remarked to Phingbodhipakkiya: “We love this. Please tell the artist his work is amazing. You must feel so lucky just to get to clean this space.”

Shocked by their blatant sexism and racism, Phingbodhipakkiya found herself speechless. “This is the reality for many of us,” she said in a recent interview, adding that although she is hopeful that things are shifting for women in the arts, “barriers still exist.”

Only 11 women were among the 100 top-selling artists at auction globally in 2023, according to the 2024 Artnet Intelligence Report . And between 2008 and 2020, only about 11 percent of acquisitions and 15 percent of exhibitions at museums in the United States featured the work of women (those exhibitions were all women or largely by women), according to the most recent Burns Halperin Report , which investigated representation in American museums.

The situation is starting to improve, as demonstrated with recent exhibitions by the German painter, printmaker and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz at MoMA in New York, the Ukrainian American Abstract Expressionist painter Janet Sobel at the city’s Ukrainian Museum, and the painter Christina Ramberg at the Art Institute of Chicago. But there is still a long way to go toward gender equity in art museums.

Equity is essential , said Katy Hessel , an art historian and the author of the book, “ The Story of Art Without Men ,” because “if we aren’t seeing artwork by a wide range of people, curated by a wide range of people, then we are not seeing art — or society, culture and history — as a whole.”

Hence the significance and urgency of museum exhibitions like “ New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 ” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, a roughly triennial, global survey of work by emerging and underrepresented women artists, runs through Aug. 11. The museum, founded in 1987, is widely recognized as the first in the world dedicated solely to women. Its collection includes more than 6,000 works of art from the 16th century through today.

“New Worlds” highlights a work from each of 28 women (including transgender women and those identifying as nonbinary) that reflects upon the current moment in history, said Virginia Treanor, senior curator at the museum and co-curator of this exhibition with the museum’s associate curator, Orin Zahra.

“When we were planning the theme for Women to Watch 2024 it was the middle of 2020, and we wanted to come up with a theme that would touch upon all that was happening in the world and in the U.S. particularly — calls for racial justice and social reform, income inequality, the climate crisis. All that was fermenting in the moment,” Treanor said. “Four years later, it feels spot on.”

Although many of the women included are considered emerging artists, they are not all early in their careers. “It is very intergenerational,” Treanor said. “Some of the artists are in their 50s and 60s and have been working consistently but really haven’t had exposure outside of their regional market. Our hope is that having exposure at the national and international level is beneficial for them.”

It should be, Hessel said. “If we look at the art market and those who have museum exhibitions, their art goes up in value. It’s a stamp of approval,” she said.

“New Worlds” showcases a wide variety of work that explores alternative representations of the past, present and future, informed by ideas about gender fluidity, displacement, belonging, technology, and social and environmental justice.

It includes Marina Vargas’s depiction, via classical sculpture, of the aftermath of her treatment for breast cancer; Ana María Hernando’s mass installation of brightly colored tulle, celebrating all that is feminine; and a self-portrait of Meryl McMaster in a green landscape wearing a basket on her back and a pointed hat with birds resting on it as she gazes into the distance. She wrote in the catalog for the exhibition that this work was inspired by the stars in the night sky “and the stories attached to them, which help guide us.”

Phingbodhipakkiya describes her installation, which resembles a robotics project, as a “postapocalyptic embodied A.I., cobbled together from remnants of human life and different generations of electronics.” Among its many components are televisions from the 1960s and ’70s, a security monitor from the 1990s, ropes, wires, circuit boards, casts of human hands, fabric and plastic tubing. “I wanted to open a portal between reckonings of the past and possibilities of tomorrow,” said Phingbodhipakkiya, 35, who lives in Brooklyn. Visitors can engage with the work using their phones. After scanning a QR code they are taken through a series of questions that explore the ethics of biological and technical advances and humanity’s complicated relationship with technology.

The title for the piece, “the primitive sign of wanting,” comes from a quote by the philosopher Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe . “She argued that ethical living involves evaluation of both intention and outcome,” Phingbodhipakkiya said. “And as biological and technical advances proliferate, this thinking feels newly urgent.”

A very different piece comes from the Texas painter Arely Morales , 33, who emigrated with her family to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico, when she was 14. The work is a large-scale painting — nearly 8 feet high and 6 feet wide — of three women, titled “Una por Una” (One by One). It shows the women taking a break from their work as house cleaners, holding a mop, rags, cleaning supplies and a stepladder. Morales was a graduate student living in Seattle when she became friends with the woman at the center of the portrait, Rosa, and began watching her and two other women as they worked; in 2019 she painted them. Morales often creates large-scale portraits of immigrant laborers to draw attention to those who are marginalized, to make “visible the invisible,” she said.

Knowing that throughout history people of importance commissioned large portraits of themselves, Morales felt inspired to do the same for members of her community. When visitors to the museum stand before her portrait, she hopes they will see what she sees in these women: “So much beauty and strength and powerful stories.”

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An Introduction to Catalonia’s Feminist Administration

For many decades, sexual and reproductive rights have been at the core of the global feminist struggle—but only an unapologetically feminist administration puts them at the center of the political agenda. Such is the progressive turn the government of Catalonia, an autonomous region in northeastern Spain, assumed in May 2021 when it created a Ministry of Equality and Feminisms .

In October 2021, this new ministry drafted the national strategy for sexual and reproductive rights. This was founded on the premise that the personal is political, so it must also be public policy. 

This strategy sought to guarantee the effective exercise of existing rights—particularly abortion, long-term contraception and sexuality education.

• While medical abortion was guaranteed throughout Catalonia thanks to its extensive network of sexual and reproductive health units in public primary healthcare centers, access to surgical abortion presented significant gaps in the territory. Such gaps have been closed, with both abortion methods now guaranteed in all health regions. Protests in front of abortion centers have also been banned.
• Long-term contraception, IUDs and subdermal implants have been made free for all women under 30, for those with low incomes, and for those experiencing gender-based violence.
• Sexuality education has been included as curricular content for all educational levels from pre-school to secondary education. This means that parents cannot opt out of their children’s exposure to this educational content.
• The national strategy for sexual and reproductive rights also introduced new rights, each of them supported by specific measures and action plans, including: the right to menstrual and climacteric equity, the right to mourn miscarriages with a three-day work permit, the right to eradicate obstetric violence, and the right to further medical research on women’s sexual and reproductive health.

‘My Period, My Rules’

How does an intersectional feminist logic of policymaking unfold in practice? Let me illustrate it with a global first: the action ‘My period, my rules,’ which consists of the free distribution of reusable menstrual products to all girls and women age 10 and 60, as well as to transgender men and nonbinary people who menstruate.

These products—one menstrual cup, a pair of menstrual underwear, or two cloth pads—can be collected at any local pharmacy by showing a QR code downloaded from the app of the Catalan public health system, which also covers undocumented migrants. Pharmacists have been trained by the Ministry of Equality and Feminisms on menstruation, reusable products, and sexual and reproductive rights, in order to provide adequate information and counsel.

The action has also been implemented in juvenile detention centers and prisons, and sessions on menstrual health are held in high schools and in community centers. Specific sessions targeting disabled women or migrant women, among other groups, will also be organized with grassroots feminist organizations.

The goals of this action are threefold.

Firstly, social justice: The action fights period poverty, which results from the feminization of poverty. Indeed, 23 percent women in Catalonia cannot afford to buy menstrual products and 44 percent opt for products that are not their first choice due to economic reasons, with implications on school and work absenteeism or on lower participation in sports or leisure activities. More generally, it also compensates for the extra economic cost that menstruating entails for half the population.

The second goal is gender justice—because we need to put an end to the taboos and myths surrounding menstruation that impact on women’s health and well-being.

Thirdly, climate justice, since it contributes to reducing the tons of waste generated by single-use menstrual products.

All these goals justify why, rather than being a means-tested benefit, menstrual equity was conceived of as a right for all women.

Last month, within 10 days of the action launch, over 250,000 women had already collected their free products and the social conversation around menstruation had reached TV and radio political talk shows, social networks, coffee breaks at workplaces, and school parent chats. Besides covering the immediate problem of period poverty, this action has also stirred structural change. Goodbye to taboos, silence and lack of information about our bodies! It was about time.

Many women are now asking: What about perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause—another taboo period of women’s life cycles.

We will get there, but the demand of more rights is another intended, albeit undeclared, goal of the ‘My period, my rules’ action. So, yes: Our Bodies, Ourselves, and Our Rights—because sexual and reproductive rights are human rights.

Out of Touch on Menopause: Experts Respond to The Lancet’s ‘Over-Medicalization’ Claims

The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement

Before the Stopping Starts

U.S. democracy is at a dangerous inflection point—from the demise of abortion rights, to a lack of pay equity and parental leave, to skyrocketing maternal mortality, and attacks on trans health. Left unchecked, these crises will lead to wider gaps in political participation and representation. For 50 years, Ms . has been forging feminist journalism—reporting, rebelling and truth-telling from the front-lines, championing the Equal Rights Amendment, and centering the stories of those most impacted. With all that’s at stake for equality, we are redoubling our commitment for the next 50 years. In turn, we need your help, Support Ms . today with a donation—any amount that is meaningful to you . For as little as $5 each month , you’ll receive the print magazine along with our e-newsletters, action alerts, and invitations to Ms . Studios events and podcasts . We are grateful for your loyalty and ferocity .

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Saudi Arabia: Woman jailed for 11 years for online expression supporting women’s rights

Saudi Arabia’s authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Manahel al-Otaibi, a 29-year-old fitness instructor and women’s rights activist, who has been sentenced to 11 years in prison because of her choice of clothing and support for women’s rights, Amnesty International and ALQST said today. The decision directly contradicts the authorities’ narrative of reform and women’s empowerment.  

Manahel al-Otaibi was sentenced in a secret hearing before the country’s notorious counter-terrorism court, the Specialized Criminal Court, on 9 January 2024, but the decision was only revealed weeks later in the Saudi government’s formal  reply  to a  request for information  in a Joint Communication by UN Special Rapporteurs about her case. 

Her  charges  related solely to her choice of clothing and expression of her views online, including calling on social media for an end to Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system, publishing videos of herself wearing “indecent clothes”, and “going to the shops without wearing an abaya” (a traditional dress). Her sister Fawzia al-Otaibi faces similar charges, but fled Saudi Arabia fearing arrest after being summoned for questioning in 2022. 

Yet, according to Saudi Arabia’s Permanent Mission in Geneva, Manahel al-Otaibi was found guilty of absurd “terrorist offences” under articles 43 and 44 of the kingdom’s draconian Counter-Terrorism Law, criminalizing “any person who creates, launches, or uses a website or a program on a computer or on an electronic device … or to publish information on the manufacture of incendiary devices, explosives, or any other devices used in terrorist crimes“, as well as “any person who, by any means, broadcasts or publishes news, statements, false or malicious rumors, or the like for committing a terrorist crime”. Al-Otaibi’s family have not had access to her court documents, or the evidence presented against her.

Manahel’s conviction and 11-year sentence is an appalling and cruel injustice. Since the moment she was arrested, Saudi Arabia’s authorities have subjected her to a relentless catalogue of abuses, from unlawful detention for supporting women’s rights to enforced disappearance for over five months while she was being secretly interrogated, tried and sentenced and subjected to repeated beatings by others in the prison. Bissan Fakih, Amnesty International’s Campaigner on Saudi Arabia

“Manahel’s conviction and 11-year sentence is an appalling and cruel injustice. Since the moment she was arrested, Saudi Arabia’s authorities have subjected her to a relentless catalogue of abuses, from unlawful detention for supporting women’s rights to enforced disappearance for over five months while she was being secretly interrogated, tried and sentenced and subjected to repeated beatings by others in the prison. With this sentence the Saudi authorities have exposed the hollowness of their much-touted women’s rights reforms in recent years and demonstrated their chilling commitment to silencing peaceful dissent,” said Bissan Fakih, Amnesty International’s Campaigner on Saudi Arabia.

“Manahel’s confidence that she could act with freedom could have been a positive advertisement for Mohammed bin Salman’s much-touted narrative of leading women’s rights reforms in the country. Instead, by arresting her and now imposing this outrageous sentence on her, the Saudi authorities have once again laid bare the arbitrary and contradictory nature of their so-called reforms, and their continuing determination to control Saudi Arabia’s women,” said Lina Alhathloul, ALQST’s Head of Monitoring and Advocacy.

Although the authorities have removed some of the restrictions women face under the male guardianship system, many discriminatory features remain in place. The long-awaited  2022 Personal Status Law , which was supposed to be a major reform, in fact serves to codify rather than abolish many restrictive elements of the system, including matters of marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. 

Manahel al-Otaibi had, ironically, been an early believer in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s promises of reform. In a 2019 TV  interview  with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, she described the “radical changes” taking place in the Saudi kingdom, including the dress code reforms, and said she felt free to express her views and wear what she liked on the basis of the Crown Prince’s declarations. Yet she was arrested on 16 November 2022 for exercising exactly these freedoms. 

By arresting her and now imposing this outrageous sentence on her, the Saudi authorities have once again laid bare the arbitrary and contradictory nature of their so-called reforms, and their continuing determination to control Saudi Arabia’s women. Lina Alhathloul, ALQST’s Head of Monitoring and Advocacy

Following her arrest, Manahel al-Otaibi was subjected to physical and psychological  abuse  in Riyadh’s Malaz Prison, and she was forcibly disappeared for five months from 5 November 2023 until April 2024. On 14 April 2024, when she was finally able to contact her family again, she told them she was being held in solitary confinement and had a broken leg as a result of physical abuse . She also said she was denied health care. 

“Saudi authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Manahel al-Otaibi and all those currently detained in the kingdom for the peaceful exercise of their human rights. Pending al-Otaibi’s release, the authorities must ensure her safety and access to adequate health care,” said Lina Alhathloul. “It is time that Saudi authorities amended the discriminatory provisions in the  Personal Status Law  and abolished the male guardianship system in its entirety,” said Bissan Fakih.

According to the Saudi government’s response to the UN, as of 25 January 2024 Manahel al-Otaibi’s sentencing was subject to appeal and her case remained “under consideration before the courts”.

Al-Otaibi’s sentencing comes amid an  intensified crackdown  on free speech in Saudi Arabia, including online expression. In the past two years, Saudi courts have convicted and handed down lengthy prison terms on dozens of individuals for their expression on social media, including many women, such as Salma al-Shehab (27 years), Fatima al-Shawarbi (30 years), Sukaynah al-Aithan (40 years) and Nourah al-Qahtani (45 years).

In 2019, as part of a drive to open up the country for tourism, the authorities announced a relaxation of dress codes for foreign women visiting the country. However, this concession has not been extended to female citizens and residents, who instead face legal uncertainty for dressing freely in public. Later in 2019, in a promotional  video  published by the state security agency, the authorities even categorised feminism as a form of “extremist” thinking, but they were forced to quickly backtrack and the Saudi Human Rights Commission had to clarify that feminism was “not a crime”.

V. I. Lenin

The tasks of the working women’s movement in the soviet republic, speech delivered at the fourth moscow city conference of non-party working women, september 23, 1919.

Delivered: 23 September, 1919 First Published: Pravda No. 213, September 25, 1919 ; Published according to the text of the pamphlet, V. I. Lenin, Speech at the Working Women’s Congress, Moscow, 1919, verified with the Pravda text Source: Lenin’s Collected Works , 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 30, pages 40-46 Translated: George Hanna Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Comrades, it gives me pleasure to greet a conference of working women. I will allow myself to pass over those subjects and questions that, of course, at the moment are the cause of the greatest concern to every working woman and to every politically-conscious individual from among the working people; these are the most urgent questions—that of bread and that of the war situation. I know from the newspaper reports of your meetings that these questions have been dealt with exhaustively by Comrade Trotsky as far as war questions are concerned and by Comrades Yakovleva and Svidersky as far as the bread question is concerned; please, therefore, allow me to pass over those questions.

I should like to say a few words about the general tasks facing the working women’s movement in the Soviet Republic, those that are, in general, connected with the transition to socialism, and those that are of particular urgency at the present time. Comrades, the question of the position of women was raised by Soviet power from the very beginning. It seems to me that any workers’ state in the course of transition to socialism is laced with a double task. The first part of that task is relatively simple and easy. It concerns those old laws that kept women in a position of inequality as compared to men.

Participants in all emancipation movements in Western Europe have long since, not for decades but for centuries, put forward the demand that obsolete laws be annulled and women and men be made equal by law, but none of the democratic European states, none of the most advanced republics have succeeded in putting it into effect, because wherever there is capitalism, wherever there is private property in land and factories, wherever the power of capital is preserved, the men retain their privileges. It was possible to put it into effect in Russia only because the power of the workers has been established here since October 25, 1917. From its very inception Soviet power set out to be the power of the working people, hostile to all forms of exploitation. It set itself the task of doing away with the possibility of the exploitation of the working people by the landowners and capitalists, of doing away with the rule of capital. Soviet power has been trying to make it possible for the working people to organise their lives without private property in land, without privately-owned factories, without that private property that everywhere, throughout the world, even where there is complete political liberty, even in the most democratic republics, keeps the working people in a state of what is actually poverty and wage-slavery, and women in a state of double slavery.

Soviet power, the power of the working people, in the first months of its existence effected a very definite revolution in legislation that concerns women. Nothing whatever is left in the Soviet Republic of those laws that put women in a subordinate position. I am speaking specifically of those laws that took advantage of the weaker position of women and put them in a position of inequality and often, even, in a humiliating position, i.e., the laws on divorce and on children born out of wedlock and on the right of a woman to summon the father of a child for maintenance.

It is particularly in this sphere that bourgeois legislation, even, it must be said, in the most advanced countries, takes advantage of the weaker position of women to humiliate them and give them a status of inequality. It is particularly in this sphere that Soviet power has left nothing whatever of the old, unjust laws that were intolerable for working people. We may now say proudly and without any exaggeration that apart from Soviet Russia there is not a country in the world where women enjoy full equality and where women are not placed in the humiliating position felt particularly in day-to-day family life. This was one of our first and most important tasks.

If you have occasion to come into contact with parties that are hostile to the Bolsheviks, if there should come into your hands newspapers published in Russian in the regions occupied by Koichak or Denikin, or if you happen to talk to people who share the views of those newspapers, you may often hear from them the accusation that Soviet power has violated democracy.

We, the representatives of Soviet power, Bolshevik Communists and supporters of Soviet power are often accused of violating democracy and proof of this is given by citing the fact that Soviet power dispersed the Constituent Assembly. We usually answer this accusation as follows; that democracy and that Constituent Assembly which came into being when private property still existed on earth, when there was no equality between people, when the one who possessed his own capital was the boss and the others worked for him and were his wage-slaves-that was a democracy on which we place no value. Such democracy concealed slavery even in the most advanced countries. We socialists are supporters of democracy only insofar as it eases the position of the working and oppressed people. Throughout the world socialism has set itself the task of combating every kind of exploitation of man by man. That democracy has real value for us winch serves the exploited, the underprivileged. If those who do not work are disfranchised that would be real equality between people. Those who do not work should not eat.

In reply to these accusations we say that the question must be presented in this way—how is democracy implemented in various countries? We see that equality is proclaimed in all democratic republics but in the civil laws and in laws on the rights of women—those that concern their position in the family and divorce—we see inequality and the humiliation of women at every step, and we say that this is a violation of democracy specifically in respect of the oppressed. Soviet power has implemented democracy to a greater degree than any of the other, most advanced countries because it has not left in its laws any trace of the inequality of women. Again I say that no other state and no other legislation has ever done for women a half of what Soviet power did in the first months of its existence.

Laws alone, of course, are not enough, and we are by no means content with mere decrees. In the sphere of legislation, however, we have done everything required of us to put women in a position of equality and we have every right to be proud of it. The position of women in Soviet Russia is now ideal as compared with their position in the most advanced states. We tell ourselves, however, that this is, of course, only the beginning.

Owing to her work in the house, the woman is still in a difficult position. To effect her complete emancipation and make her the equal of the man it is necessary for the national economy to be socialised and for women to participate in common productive labour. Then women will occupy the same position as men.

Here we are not, of course, speaking of making women the equal of men as far as productivity of labour, the quantity of labour, the length of the working day, labour conditions, etc., are concerned; we mean that the woman should not, unlike the man, be oppressed because of her position in the family. You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain factually downtrodden because all housework is left to them. In most cases housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman.

In pursuance of the socialist ideal we want to struggle for the full implementation of socialism, and here an extensive field of labour opens up before women. We are now making serious preparations to clear the ground for the building of socialism, but the building of socialism will begin only when we have achieved the complete equality of women and when we undertake the new work together with women who have been ’emancipated from that petty, stultifying, unproductive work. This is a job that will take us many, many years.

This work cannot show any rapid results and will not produce a scintillating effect.

We are setting up model institutions, dining-rooms and nurseries, that will emancipate women from housework. And the work of organising all these institutions will fall mainly to women. It has to be admitted that in Russia today there are very few institutions that would help woman out of her state of household slavery. There is an insignificant number of them, and the conditions now obtaining in the Soviet Republic—the war and food situation about which comrades have already given you the details—hinder us in this work. Still, it must be said that these institutions that liberate women from their position as household slaves are springing up wherever it is in any way possible.

We say that the emancipation of the workers must be effected by the workers themselves, and in exactly the same way the emancipation of working women is a matter for the working women themselves. The working women must themselves see to it that such institutions are developed, and this activity will bring about a complete change in their position as compared with what it was under the old, capitalist society.

In order to be active in politics under the old, capitalist regime special training was required, so that women played an insignificant part in politics, even in the most advanced and free capitalist countries. Our task is to make politics available to every working woman. Ever since private property in laud and factories has been abolished and the power of the landowners and capitalists overthrown, the tasks of politics have become simple, clear and comprehensible to the working people as a whole, including working women. In capitalist society the woman’s position is marked by such inequality that the extent of her participation in politics is only an insignificant fraction of that of the man. The power of the working people is necessary for a change to be wrought in this situation, for then the main tasks of politics will consist of matters directly affecting the fate of the working people themselves.

Here, too, the participation of working women is essential —not only of party members and politically-conscious women, but also of the non-party women and those who are least politically conscious. Here Soviet power opens up a wide field of activity to working women.

We have had a difficult time in the struggle against the forces hostile to Soviet Russia that have attacked her. It was difficult for us to fight on the battlefield against the forces who went to war against the power of the working people and in the field of food supplies against the profiteers, because of the too small number of people, working people, who came whole-heartedly to our aid with their own labour. Here, too, there is nothing Soviet power can appreciate as much as the help given by masses of non-party working women. They may know that in the old, bourgeois society, perhaps, a comprehensive training was necessary for participation in politics and that this was not available to women. The political activity of the Soviet Republic is mainly the struggle against the landowners and capitalists, the struggle for the elimination of exploitation; political activity, therefore, is made available to the working woman in the Soviet Republic and it will consist in the working woman using her organisational ability to help the working man.

What we need is not only organisational work on a scale involving millions; we need organisational work on the smallest scale and this makes it possible for women to work as well. Women can work under war conditions when it is a question of helping the army or carrying on agitation in the army. Women should take an active part in all this so that the Red Army sees that it is being looked after, that solicitude is being displayed. Women can also work in the sphere of food distribution, on the improvement of public catering and everywhere opening dining-rooms like those that are so numerous in Petrograd.

It is in these fields that the activities of working women acquire the greatest organisational significance. The participation of working women is also essential in the organisation and running of big experimental farms and should not take place only in isolated cases. This i5 something that cannot be carried out without the participation of a large number of working women. Working women will be very useful in this field in supervising the distribution of food and in making food products more easily obtainable. This work can well be done by non-party working women and its accomplishment will do more than anything else to strengthen socialist society.

We have abolished private property in land and almost completely abolished the private ownership of factories; Soviet power is now trying to ensure that all working people, non-party as well as Party members, women as well as men, should take part in this economic development. The work that Soviet power has begun can only make progress when, instead of a few hundreds, millions and millions of women throughout Russia take part in it. We are sure that the cause of socialist development will then become sound. Then the working people will show that they can live and run their country without the aid of the landowners and capitalists. Then socialist construction will be so soundly based in Russia that no external enemies in other countries and none inside Russia will be any danger to the Soviet Republic.

Collected Works Volume 30 Collected Works Table of Contents Lenin Works Archive

Trump says it’s up to states whether to punish, monitor women for abortions

Former president Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that he would not intervene in state decisions on abortion policy, including in situations where states seek to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans.

Trump also declined during the interview with Time magazine to commit to veto any additional federal restrictions if they were to come to his desk upon a possible return to the White House.

Asked by Time if he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions outside limited periods permitted by state laws, Trump suggested the federal government should have no role.

“It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not,” Trump said. “It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”

Trump’s comments highlight the fraught politics of the stance on abortion that he outlined earlier this month.

Trump announced on social media that policy should be left to the states, after months of mixed signals about his position. Trump has consistently taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade — three of the justices who ruled on the case were appointed by him — yet has distanced himself from the political repercussions of the decision.

Shortly after Trump articulated his states-rights stance this month, Arizona’s Supreme Court revived an 1864 law passed before it was granted statehood that forbids abortions except to save a mother’s life and punishes providers with prison time. In that case, Trump said the state had gone too far.

During the Time interview, however, Trump repeatedly emphasized his support for state autonomy, at least in concept.

When asked, for instance, about the federal Republican-sponsored Life at Conception Act, which would grant “full legal rights to embryos,” Trump said: “I’m leaving everything up to the states.”

He declined to say whether he would veto such a bill, suggesting he wouldn’t be presented with that decision.

“I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,” Trump said, “because we now have it back in the states.”

Asked by Time if states should monitor women’s pregnancies to detect whether they get abortions after a ban takes effect, Trump said: “I think they might do that.”

“Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states,” he said. “Look, Roe v. Wade was all about bringing it back to the states.”

Democrats have sought to make abortion the dominant issue in the 2024 elections, highlighting Trump’s role in appointing the three conservative Supreme Court justices who helped overturn a constitutional right to abortion in 2022, and legislation pushed by Republican lawmakers to ban or severely restrict access to the procedure.

President Biden’s campaign seized on the Time interview after it was published Tuesday.

Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Trump’s latest remarks are proof that reproductive health care is at stake in the election.

“Donald Trump’s latest comments leave little doubt: if elected he’ll sign a national abortion ban, allow women who have an abortion to be prosecuted and punished, allow the government to invade women’s privacy to monitor their pregnancies, and put IVF and contraception in jeopardy nationwide,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “Simply put: November’s election will determine whether women in the United States have reproductive freedom, or whether Trump’s new government will continue its assault to control women’s health care decisions.”

Trump declined to answer directly when asked by Time if he thinks women should be able to obtain the abortion pill mifepristone .

“Well, I have an opinion on that, but I’m not going to explain. I’m not gonna say it yet.” He said he would announce his position “probably over the next week.” When pressed for an answer, Trump sought more time. “I will be making a statement on that over the next 14 days.”

Trump spoke with writer Eric Cortellessa at his home in Florida on April 12 and had a follow-up phone interview April 27, the magazine reported. On Tuesday it published a story about the interview along with a transcript .

The interview comes as Republicans brace for fallout from their newly pushed restrictions.

Florida’s ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy takes effect this week, one of the strictest in the nation.

The Republican-led Arizona Senate is expected to vote on a repeal of the state’s near total abortion ban after the state Supreme Court ruled a Civil War-era bill can take effect following the overturning of Roe v. Wade . Arizona’s House last week voted to repeal the law, after prominent antiabortion Republicans such as Senate candidate Kari Lake reversed course on the issue .

Trump, who once described himself as “very pro-choice,” said in 2000 that he would “indeed support a ban.” As a candidate, Trump struggled to adopt a position to fully satisfy leading members of the antiabortion movement while shielding himself and Republicans from blowback at the ballot box.

During the GOP nominating contests, Trump declined to take a firm stance on federal legislation and criticized Florida’s six-week abortion ban as a “terrible mistake.” In a CNN town hall last year, Trump would not say whether he would sign a federal abortion ban. Instead he said the antiabortion movement was in a “very good negotiating position” after the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

As president, Trump backed a 20-week abortion ban that did not have the votes to pass Congress and at the time conflicted with Roe, which gave Americans nationwide a right to abortion until a fetus was viable outside the womb, often pegged at roughly 24 weeks of pregnancy.

After publication of the Time interview Tuesday, Trump celebrated the piece while speaking to reporters outside the courtroom in New York, where he is on trial.

“I want to thank the Time magazine,” he said. “They did a cover story, which is very nice.”

“It’s at least 60 percent correct, which is all I could ask for,” Trump said, without identifying anything that he might say were inaccuracies. Trump walked away and ignored questions shouted by reporters.

Isaac Arnsdorf contributed to this report.

U.S. abortion access, reproductive rights

Tracking abortion access in the United States: Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade , the legality of abortion has been left to individual states. The Washington Post is tracking states where abortion is legal, banned or under threat.

Abortion and the election: Voters in about a dozen states could decide the fate of abortion rights with constitutional amendments on the ballot in a pivotal election year. Biden supports legal access to abortion , and he has encouraged Congress to pass a law that would codify abortion rights nationwide. After months of mixed signals about his position, Trump said the issue should be left to states . Here’s how Biden and Trump’s abortion stances have shifted over the years.

New study: The number of women using abortion pills to end their pregnancies on their own without the direct involvement of a U.S.-based medical provider rose sharply in the months after the Supreme Court eliminated a constitutional right to abortion , according to new research.

Abortion pills: The Supreme Court seemed unlikely to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone . Here’s what’s at stake in the case and some key moments from oral arguments . For now, full access to mifepristone will remain in place . Here’s how mifepristone is used and where you can legally access the abortion pill .

• States where abortion is on the ballot in the 2024 election April 15, 2024 States where abortion is on the ballot in the 2024 election April 15, 2024
• States where abortion is legal, banned or under threat April 9, 2024 States where abortion is legal, banned or under threat April 9, 2024
• Trump says it’s up to states whether to punish, monitor women for abortions April 30, 2024 Trump says it’s up to states whether to punish, monitor women for abortions April 30, 2024